Are You Sure About Shore Leave?
by SciFiFanForever
Summary: After leaving the derelict SS Madame de Pompadour, Mickey asks Rose about their adventure on the USS Enterprise. The Doctor agrees to take him there to show him it's real.
1. Moving On By Going Back

**Author's notes:**

Another Doctor Who / Star Trek original series crossover which I would like to dedicate to Furostomi-chan who made me think about a TOS crossover, and enjoyed my attempt so much. This is another fun episode, but I've added a bit of angst for good measure.

 **Chapter 1**

 **Moving On By Going Back**

Rose watched the Doctor slowly close the door of the TARDIS and walk up the ramp with his hands in his pockets. He was looking down at the floor grating with a sad, thoughtful look on his face.

'Why her?' she asked tentatively, unsure of her relationship with this incredible alien whom she had come to think of as more than just a friend. 'Why did they think they could repair the ship with the head of Madame de Pompadour?'

He looked up as if just realising that she and Mickey were on board. 'We'll probably never know,' he answered with a shrug. 'There was massive damage in the computer memory banks. It probably got confused.' He scratched his ear and walked around the console. 'The Tardis can close down the time windows now the droids are gone.' He adjusted a couple of the controls. 'Should stop it causing any more trouble.'

'Are you all right?' She asked hesitantly as she nervously touched her cheek. What she really wanted to ask was, "are we all right?"

Twice in the space of a few days, the Doctor had acted as though she meant nothing to him. Once outside the cafe near Deffry Vale High School.

"How many of us have there been travelling with you?" she'd asked him.

"Does it matter?" he'd replied dismissively. It was all a bit too domestic for him.

But Rose wasn't going to let it go. "Yeah, it does, if I'm just the latest in a long line."

"As opposed to what?" he'd challenged. Did she think he was her boyfriend or something? He was over nine hundred years old for goodness sake!

That had hurt her. She thought they had something special, something that would lead to . . . well, something more.

"I thought you and me were . . . I obviously got it wrong," she'd said angrily. "I've been to the year five billion, right, but this? Now this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind . . . Is that what you're going to do to me?"

"No. Not to you," he'd said quickly.

So she'd been right. He did have feelings for her. She'd softened her tone of voice when she'd continued. "But Sarah Jane? You were that close to her once, and now you never even mention her. Why not?"

And that was the crux of the problem. He didn't want to lose Rose, but knew that eventually he would. "I don't age," he'd told her angrily. But his anger wasn't directed at her. He was angry at the universe in general. "I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone who you . . ." He'd stopped before making a confession that he might have later regretted.

But Rose had spotted his hesitation. "What, Doctor?" She'd wanted to know what she meant to him.

When he'd spoken again, his voice had been tinged with sadness. "You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on. Alone. That's the curse of the Time Lords."

And that had told Rose why he was reluctant to form relationships. It hurt him. But then today, he had ridden a horse through a time window to rescue Madame de Pompadour; trapping himself in the eighteenth century, and Mickey and herself in the fifty first. All without a second thought for her.

'I'm always all right,' he said automatically in answer to her original question.

Mickey could see that these two needed a time-out. When it came to emotional uncertainty, he'd been there and bought the T-shirt.

'Come on, Rose. It's time you showed me around the rest of this place,' he said as he took her hand and led her through the opening into the passageway.

He'd already seen the kitchen / dining room, as they'd had something to eat and drink while they waited the five and a half hours for the Doctor to return. At the time, Mickey wasn't sure if the Doctor would return, and had been trying to find out what supplies they had on board.

"So, how much food do we have on board then?" he'd asked her.

"I dunno really," she'd told him. "The Doctor said that the food replicator can recombine individual atoms and molecules into food items. I suppose it's infinite."

"So we won't starve then," he'd said with relief.

"Mickey, he's comin' back," she'd said, hoping her faith in the Doctor was well founded.

"Yeah, you said, I'm just tryin' to plan for any contingency . . . y'know, a bit of crisis management."

And actually, she couldn't argue with that, they hadn't know how long it would take him to get back, even though she trusted the Doctor and was certain he would do something brilliant to get back to her . . . Well, that's what she'd kept telling herself.

'The swimmin' pool and gym are just in there,' she told Mickey, indicating a set of double doors on the left as they approached.

He opened the doors and looked in. 'WOW!'

He was looking at a health spa, with changing cubicles, an olympic sized pool, and a mind boggling assortment of high tech exercise equipment.

'Yeah. Not bad, is it?' Rose said with a smile. She took his hand again and led him to the living room.

Mickey saw the comfy sofa, where he imagined Rose and the Doctor cuddled up to watch the large flat screen television.

'What channels do yer get on that then?' he asked, hoping that an innocent question about what they watched might elicit some information on their relationship.

'Oh, the TARDIS streams programmes from all over the place,' Rose told him, handing him the remote. 'I can still watch Eastenders, Top Gear and all my other favourites, but I'm hooked on this soap called By the Light of the Asteroid,' she explained as Mickey brought up the channel guide and started surfing the huge list. 'It's about this woman called Joofie Crystalle and there are these twins . . .'

Mickey found an earth channel that listed the original Star Trek episodes, which reminded him of a conversation they'd had when Rose and the Doctor had returned to investigate Deffry Vale High School.

'Seein' that there reminds me. Were you and 'im winding me up when you said you'd been on the Starship Enterprise?' he asked with a lopsided smile.

'No. Honest. Like I said, we met Gene Roddenberry an' took him home. I said y'wouldn't believe it,' Rose said.

'Well, y'gotta admit, it's a bit far fetched innit. I mean, Kirk an' Spock an' everythin',' Mickey said with a laugh.

'Yeah, I know whatcha mean. I was the same when I first saw them. But then the Doctor told me that they weren't William Shatner or Leonard Nimoy. They were the real people that the actors were playin' on the show.' Rose then had a thought. 'I can show ya the uniforms if y'like. They let us keep 'em.'

'Seriously?' Mickey asked with a big grin.

'Yeah. An' I can show you the wardrobe at the same time.' Rose took his hand and led him out of the living room.

She took the second passageway on the right, and then third on the left. She led him straight ahead and under some stairs. Mickey was starting to wonder just how big this ship was. They went past some high tech looking bins, and Rose stopped at the fifth door on the left.

'You ready?' Rose asked with a mischievous smile.

'Ready for what?' Mickey asked with a frown.

'This,' She said and opened the large door.

Mickey was confronted by a spherical room, the upper hemisphere looking like the console room, complete with floor decking and weirdly shaped coral struts. However, instead of a time rotor in the centre, there was an ornate spiral staircase which led down to an inverted hemisphere. Around the left hand wall and curving around to the front, were rows and rows of clothing on four levels. He could see the same on the floor below.

'Bloody 'ell,' is all he could say.

Rose bumped shoulders with him. 'I know. Good innit?'

She led him over to one of the rows of clothing and sorted through some of the getups. There were space suits, an Edwardian cricketer's outfit with three quarter length coat. A long coat with an outrageously long scarf hung around it. She pulled out a hanger with a red sweatshirt and black trousers.

'There ya go. Starfleet uniform. There's a changin' cubicle over there, why don'tcha try it on?' she teased.

'I will if you will,' he responded.

She flashed him her beaming smile. 'Deal. See ya in a few minutes.'

Mickey watched her jog over to the spiral staircase and disappear down to the next level. He went into the cubicle and hung the clothes on a peg while he took off his T-shirt and jeans. He pulled on the black trousers, and realised that he was a different size to the Doctor, and these trousers would never fit. And yet, as he pulled them up, they fitted like a glove.

What he hadn't taken into account was that the clothing was from the twenty third century. The cloth was made from a mimetic polymer which adjusted the fibres to fit the wearer's body. The same thing happened when he pulled on the sweatshirt, it fit around his chest and abdomen, and the sleeve length was perfect.

'I'll be damned,' Mickey said to himself with a smile.

He sat on the small bench and pulled on the boots, which again, fit him perfectly. He stood up and pulled open the curtain of the cubicle, where he caught sight of himself in the full length mirror. He swaggered over with a grin on his face, turning left and right to admire the outfit. He heard footsteps ringing on the metal stairs as Rose emerged from the lower floor.

'Well . . . Watcha think?' she asked, holding her arms out and giving a twirl.

'Oh God Rose. You look amazin',' he said, staring at the short red dress she was wearing. He'd never told Rose, but he'd often fantasised about her wearing one of the sexy uniforms, and here she was, right in front of him like a dream come true.

"Yep. Still got it" she thought to herself as she saw his expression and appreciative gaze. 'You don't look half bad yerself.'

'D'ya think the Doctor would take me back there?' he asked hesitantly. 'Y'know, to the Enterprise so that I could see it for myself?'

'I don't see why not,' she replied. 'Tell ya what. You go an' put the kettle on, and I'll go an' ask 'im.'

'Would ya? That'd be brilliant.'

'No problem.' She took his hand and led him back towards the kitchen. There was something else she wanted to ask the Doctor at the same time, something in private.

When she reached the console room, the Doctor had his back to the doorway, his hands in his pockets as he looked at the monitor.

'Hiya,' Rose said as she entered the domed room. He turned to look at her, and smiled when he saw what she was wearing.

'Hello. Someone's been playing dressing up again.'

She looked down at the uniform and smoothed it down before tugging down the hem of the dress. 'What this little ol' thing. You should see Mickey,' she laughed. 'Actually, he was wonderin' if we could go an' see the Enterprise.'

'Yeah, course we can,' he said and turned towards the console.

Rose walked towards him and held his hand. 'Before we do though, I wanted to ask you . . . Are we all right? Y'know, me an' you? Only this last coupla days have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for me . . . what with meetin' Sarah Jane and then that thing with Reinette . . .'

He'd turned to face her and was looking into her gorgeous hazel eyes. He could see all the upset and uncertainty of the last few days reflected in her gaze.

'Oh Rose. Come here,' he said as he pulled her into a hug. 'I'm sorry. Meeting Sarah again brought back a lot of old memories, and then Reinette sneaking inside my head while I was looking for some answers as to why those robots wanted her brain. It all got a bit too much.'

Rose had her right cheek resting against his chest as she hugged him. 'I was so scared that you didn't want me any more and were gonna drop me off back home like y'did with Sarah Jane.'

He had his chin resting on top of her head, and rubbed her back as he replied. 'Of course I want you Rose. Before I met you, I'd been on my own for such a long time that I'd forgotten what it was like to have a friend on board. You showed me how to have fun again. There's no way I want to go back to being on my own.'

He released her from the hug and held her shoulders, looking into her eyes and smiling. 'And besides, if I ever drop you off back home all unhappy, your mother would kill me.'

Rose rested her forehead against his as she laughed. She then looked up into those dark, ancient eyes and stroked his cheek. 'Thank you,' she said and kissed the opposite cheek. 'C'mon. Let's go an' tell Mickey he's gonna be in Star Trek. He's in the kitchen, makin' a brew.'

She grabbed his hand and literally skipped out of the console room, happy in the knowledge that she and the Doctor were still good.

'Blimey. You've got him well trained,' the Doctor said as he bounced out of the room beside her.

'Oh don't say that. You make him sound like a puppy or somethin'.'

'Wellll . . .'

* * *

 **The USS Enterprise.**

 **Orbiting an uninhabited planet in the Omicron Delta region.**

 **Stardate: 3025.3. (January 10, 2326)**

The USS Enterprise, designation NCC-1701 was a twenty third century Federation Constitution-class starship operated by Starfleet. It had a saucer shaped primary hull which was over four hundred feet in diameter. A large strut connected it to the cylindrical secondary hull, which was three hundred and forty feet long. Two long struts connected the warp nacelles to the secondary hull, giving the ship an overall length of nine hundred and forty seven feet.

Over the last few months, the four hundred and thirty members of the crew had been through the mill with a variety of gruelling missions and were in need of some down time. An away team were currently assessing an uninhabited planet which seemed to offer the possibility of some shore leave.

'Anything from the landing party?' Captain Kirk asked his first officer as he signed an order on a young yeomans data pad.

The Vulcan science officer, who had pointed ears and a yellowish complexion, walked over from a panel he'd been inspecting and stood behind the command chair with yeoman Tonia Barrows.

'They should be sending up a report momentarily, Captain,' he replied. He watched as Kirk stretched and groaned in the command chair. 'Something wrong?'

'A kink in my back,' Kirk told him, indicating the area between his shoulder blades. Yeoman Barrows started to massage the area he'd indicated. 'That's it. A little higher, please. Push. Push hard. Dig it in there, Mister Sp . . .'

Spock had stepped forward so that his captain could see that it was not he who was giving him the massage.

'Thank you, Yeoman. That's sufficient,' Kirk said hurriedly.

Tonia looked to Spock for approval before speaking. 'You need sleep, Captain . . . If it's not out of line.'

'I have enough of that from Doctor McCoy, Yeoman. Thank you,' Kirk told her curtly.

'Doctor McCoy is correct, Captain,' Spock told him. 'After what this ship has been through in the last three months, there is not a crewman aboard who is not in need of rest . . . Myself excepted, of course.' Vulcans did not expend energy unnecessarily, and were not prone to physical or mental fatigue.

Kirk had heard enough. He was the captain of this ship, and he would decide when he needed shore leave. He rubbed his eyes as he got out of the chair and headed for the turbo lift at the rear of the bridge.

'Have Doctor McCoy's report channeled to my quarters, Lieutenant,' he said to Uhura, the communications officer, who was sitting at her station.

'Aye, aye, Captain,' she replied as the doors swished shut.


	2. Paradise Found

**Chapter 2**

 **Paradise Found**

 **An uninhabited planet in the Omicron Delta region.**

 **Stardate: 3025.3. (September 28, 2267)**

'Beautiful, beautiful. No animals, no people, no worries. Just what the doctor ordered. Right, Doctor?' Sulu, the Japanese starship pilot said as they walked through a leafy glade beside a pool of crystal clear water.

Doctor McCoy laughed as he looked up at the sky. 'I couldn't have prescribed better . . . We are one weary ship.'

'Do you think the Captain will authorise shore leave here?' Sulu asked.

'Depending upon my report and that of the other scouting parties,' McCoy replied. He looked around the clearing, soaking in the tranquil surroundings. 'You know, you have to see this place to believe it. It's like something out of Alice in Wonderland. The Captain has to come down.'

'He'd like it,' Sulu agreed.

'He needs it. You've got your problems, I've got mine. He's got ours, plus his, plus four hundred and thirty other people's.' Sulu removed a hand held sensor from his tricorder and started to walk back along the edge of the pool. 'Where are you going?'

'To get some cell-structure records. A blade of grass, a bush, a tree, a flower petal. With these, we can tell the whole planet's biology,' Sulu explained as he crouched down behind a tall bush of multi coloured grasses that resembled pampas grass. He was a keen botanist, and enjoyed any opportunity to explore new species.

McCoy turned away and walked on further around the pool, where he came across a large white rabbit in a check jacket, yellow waistcoat, and looking at a gold pocket-watch.

'Oh, my paws and whiskers! I'll be late,' it announced. It put the watch into the pocket of it's waistcoat and hopped through a hole in the hedgerow.

McCoy just stood there, speechless. He really was overdue for some shore leave. As he stood there, trying to rationalise what he'd seen, a young girl came running up, wearing a blue dress with a white apron.

'Excuse me, sir,' she said politely, in an English accent. 'Have you seen a rather large white rabbit with a yellow waistcoat and white gloves here about?'

Wordlessly, McCoy pointed in the direction the rabbit went. The girl curtsied and gave him a charming smile. 'Thank you very much.'

She ran off through the hedgerow after the rabbit.

'SULU!' McCoy bellowed when he'd finally found his voice.

Sulu heard the alarm in his voice and came running. 'What is it? What's the matter?'

McCoy was staring at the hole in the hedgerow. 'Did you see them?'

'See what?' Sulu asked. He looked at the hole where McCoy was staring. 'I don't see anything. What is it, Doc?'

* * *

'Right then Mickey-Boy. We'll set the temporal coordinates for the late twenty third century,' The Doctor said as he orbited the console, pulling levers and flicking switches with a flourish. 'Probably better if we materialise in normal space first and knock. We don't want to set off a load of alarms . . . That'd be rude.' He gave them his boyish grin.

'An' how yer gonna do that then?' Mickey asked, looking over the console. 'I don't see no advanced hyperspace communications device like they use on the show.'

The Doctor looked at Rose and shook his head in resignation, which caused Rose to snort a laugh. He picked up the trim phone off the console. 'Never heard of the telephone? Only this one's not just a telephone, it's a space-time telegraph.'

Mickey looked to Rose for support. 'Well. It don't look like an advanced communications device. How was I supposed to know?'

The Doctor playfully patted his cheek. 'Nah. You weren't to know. Just remember that things aren't always as they seem.'

'What? Like a small wooden box y'mean?' He replied with a lopsided smile.

'That's the kind of thing, yeah.' It then seemed as though his call had connected. 'Hello . . ? Captain Kirk? It's the Doctor,' he said with a smile aimed at Rose. 'Just "The Doctor". Remember? Small, blue wooden box with "Police" written on it?'

* * *

In his quarters, Captain Kirk was dictating his log on his desk terminal as Yeoman Tonia Barrows waited to speak with him.

'Captain's log. Stardate three oh two five, er, point three. We are orbiting an uninhabited planet in the Omicron Delta region. A planet remarkably like Earth, or how we remember Earth to be. Park-like, beautiful, green, flowers, trees, green lawn, quiet and restful. Almost too good to be true.'

'Sir, I don't see your name in any of the shore parties,' she said when he finished.

'I may be tired, Yeoman, but I'm not falling apart. Dismissed,' he told her.

Barrows hesitated. She wanted to tell him that he would be falling apart if he didn't take a break, but it wasn't her place. She was a yeoman, and he was her captain. 'Aye, aye sir,' she said with resignation and left his quarters.

Before the door closed, Spock entered the room.

'Mister Spock, we're beaming down the starboard section first. Which section would you like to go with?' Kirk asked him.

'Not necessary in my case, Captain. On my planet, to rest is to rest, to cease using energy. To me, it is quite illogical to run up and down on green grass using energy instead of saving it,' he informed him.

Kirk had a smile on his face as the intercom whistled on his desk for his attention.

'Kirk here.'

['Captain. We are being hailed. It's marked as a personal call for you,'] Uhura told him.

'A personal call? You'd better put it through,' he said with a questioning look at Spock.

'Would you like me to leave?' Spock asked.

'No, that's all right. Let's see who it is first.'

['Hello . . ? Captain Kirk? It's the Doctor,'] a cheerful voice said from the speaker.

'Doctor who?' Kirk asked.

['Just "The Doctor". Remember? Small, blue wooden box with "Police" written on it?']

Spock raised an eyebrow as he reminded Kirk. 'The incident at Sherman's Planet and on Deep Space Station Seven, with the Klingon's and the Tribbles.'

Kirk nodded as he remembered. 'Yes, of course. Doctor. What can I do for you?'

['Well, we were in the neighbourhood, and a friend of ours was keen to have a look at your magnificent ship,'] the Doctor told him.

'Well, I'm sure that can be arranged,' Kirk replied with a smile. 'I'll alert the shuttle bay of your imminent arrival.'

['Thank you Captain. We look forward to meeting you again.']

The call ended, and Kirk pressed another button.

"Whee-ee-woo".

'This is Captain Kirk,' he said to the ensign in the shuttle hangar. 'There will be a small, blue wooden box appearing shortly on the hangar deck.'

['Sir?'] the ensign responded, with a disbelieving tone of voice.

'I know Ensign. And no, I am not in desperate need of shore leave. Just have someone show the crew of the box to the bridge. Kirk out.' He looked up at Spock and gave him a smile. 'Was there something you wanted to see me about?'

Spock was about to reply, when the intercom whistled again.

"Whee-ee-woo".

['Kirk here.']

['Doctor McCoy calling from the planet, Captain,] Uhura told him.

'Yes. Open a channel, Uhura.'

['Aye, aye, sir.']

['Captain, are you beaming down?'] McCoy asked him.

'I hadn't planned to, Bones. Why?'

The ship's surgeon hesitated before speaking['. . . Well, either our scouting probes and detectors are malfunctioning . . . and all us scouts careless and beauty-intoxicated . . . or I must report myself unfit for duty,'] McCoy said without any hint of his usual sarcasm.

Kirk and Spock exchanged a puzzled look. 'Explain,' Kirk commanded.

['On this supposedly uninhabited planet . . . I just saw a large rabbit pull a gold watch from his vest and claim that he was late.'] Kirk had a little laugh to himself, whilst Spock just looked ahead, as inscrutable as ever.

'That's pretty good. I got one for you,' Kirk said, playing along with the joke. 'The rabbit was followed by a little blonde girl, right?'

['As a matter of fact, yes . . . And they disappeared through a hole in a hedge.']

'All right, Doctor, I'll take your report under consideration,' he said as he looked at Spock. 'Captain out.'

Kirk stood and walked around the room, massaging the back of his neck as he spoke. 'That's a McCoy pill, with a little mystery sugar-coating. He wants to get me down there. I'm afraid I won't swallow it.'

'Very well, Captain. Something I did come to discuss,' Spock said, consulting his data pad.

'Yes, Mister Spock, what is it?'

'I picked this up from Doctor McCoy's log. We have a crew member aboard who's showing signs of stress and fatigue. Reaction time down nine to twelve percent, associational reading norm minus three.'

'That's much too low a rating,' Kirk told him, although Spock was already aware of the facts.

'He's becoming irritable and quarrelsome, yet he refuses to take rest and rehabilitation. Now, He has that right, but we've found . . .'

'A crewman's right ends where the safety of the ship begins,' Kirk interrupted. 'That man will go a shore on my orders. What's his name?'

Spock read the name off the data pad. 'James Kirk,' he said with a raised eyebrow. 'Enjoy yourself, Captain. It's an interesting planet. You'll find it quite pleasant. Very much like your Earth. Scouts have detected no animals, artefacts, or force fields of any kind. Only peace, sunshine, and good air. You'll have no problems.'

* * *

As usual, the Doctor was running around the console like an excited puppy. 'So. Shut down the Gravitic Anomaliser. Rose, could you take the Helmic Regulator off line?'

Rose looked at the panel she was standing in front of. 'Errr . . . That's this one, right?'

He looked over at the control she was pointing at and gave her a proud smile. 'That's the one.'

She pulled the lever with an enormous smile on her face, and the Time Rotor stopped grinding up and down. The room fell silent.

'So we're on the hangar deck of the USS Enterprise?' Mickey asked. 'I mean THE Enterprise. Like the one in the show?'

The Doctor picked up his long coat off the coral and shrugged it on his shoulders. He indicated the TARDIS doors with a sweep of his arm. 'Why don't you take a look.'

He looked at Rose with the expression of a child at a theme park. He literally couldn't believe where he was. Rose gave him her best smile and nodded at the doors. He hurried down the ramp, took a breath and pulled open the door. He stepped outside with his mouth open in wonder.

He was looking at a semi-cylindrical hangar, with a hemispherical set of concertina doors thirty metres away at the far end of the hangar. He could see a couple of control towers either side of the doors, and a couple of observation windows on the next deck up, a little nearer. There was a circular area in the middle of the floor, which he assumed was the shuttle lift from the shuttle bay below. He turned around and saw a set of red, turbolift doors set into the rear wall, with an observation gallery above, running the length of the rear wall.

'Ah. This is where we were parked last time,' Rose remembered as she stepped out. She waved to some of the crew who were looking down at them from the gallery. They politely waved back, presuming from their attire, that they were members of the crew.

'Oh man. This is amazin',' Mickey said. 'Thanks for this Boss.'

The Doctor closed the TARDIS door and grinned at him. 'You're welcome. A bit better than the wreck of "The Madame de Pompadour",' he told them.

'Y'what?' Rose asked with a frown.

'That ship. I looked up it's transponder. It was called "The Madame de Pompadour". That's why the robots wanted her brain. They thought they could repair the computer with it,' he explained. He thought about it and shrugged. 'Maybe they could have.'

Mickey nodded and looked around again. 'Yep. Definitely better. This is a proper star ship.'

They all turned as the turbolift doors swished open and a familiar figure stepped out. 'Welcome back to the Enterprise,' Yeoman Janice Rand said to the Doctor and Rose, and then smiled at Mickey. 'And welcome to you, sir.'

'Hello again Janice,' Rose said, kissing her on the cheek. 'This is an old friend of mine, Mickey Smith.'

Janice held out her hand and shook Mickey's. 'Nice to meet you Mickey. I'm Janice, Janice Rand.'

'Oh my God. You're Yeoman Rand!' Mickey exclaimed.

'Yes. That's right,' Janice said with a frown. 'Have we met before?'

'Not exactly,' the Doctor said, shaking her hand in greeting. 'It's a bit complicated. Nice to see you again, Janice.'

'And you Doctor. Captain Kirk has asked me to escort you all to the Bridge.'

'Awesome,' said Mickey.

'Thank you,' said Rose.

In the turbolift, they held the handles spaced around the circular wall, and Janice twisted hers and said "Bridge". They felt the pod move horizontally away from the Shuttlecraft Hangar towards the front of the secondary hull.

'I see you are still wearing the uniform, Rose,' Janice said with a smile.

Rose looked down at the red mini dress. 'Oh, yeah. I found it out when Mickey tried that one on.'

The pod stopped moving, and then started to ascend into the support strut towards the primary hull.

Janice looked over to the Doctor. 'That leaves you without your uniform Doctor. Would you like me to get one from the stores?'

The Doctor was holding a handle with his right hand, and had his left hand in his trouser pocket. His right leg was crossed in front of his left. He looked down at his brown, pinstripe suit, long brown coat, and white converse, then looked at Janice. 'Nah. I'm good thanks.'

When the turbolift pod entered the primary hull, it stopped ascending, and started moving horizontally again towards the centre of the saucer section.

'And what have you been up to since we last saw you?' Janice asked to make polite conversation.

'Oh, you know,' the Doctor started. 'This and that.'

'We stopped a load of bat aliens from takin' over a school,' Mickey said.

Janice raised her eyebrows in surprise. 'Really. How did you manage that?'

Rose gave a sheepish smile and pointed over her shoulder with her thumb towards the Doctor. 'Er, he kinda blew up the school.'

Janice gave a single laugh as the turbolift pod stopped moving again, and ascened for the last time towards the bridge.

'Oh, an' then we found a derelict spaceship where robots had used parts of the crew to try and make repairs,' Mickey continued enthusiastically.

'I don't think Janice needs to hear about that one, Mickey,' the Doctor said, trying to rein him in.

The Doctor didn't have to say anything else though, because the turbolift doors opened, and Mickey was speechless. The circular bridge had workstations around the curving walls, except at the front, where a large view screen showed the crescent of a blue and green planet. A red handrail curved around the raised outer deck, separating the workstations from the lower inner deck which contained the captain's chair and helm station.

'Oh-my-God, it's the actual bridge of the Starship Enterprise,' Mickey said in open mouthed wonder. He then looked suspiciously at the Doctor. 'It is, isn't it? It's not one of them mock ups they have at Paramount Studio Tours or somethin'?'

Rose hugged his arm for reassurance. 'No. Honest Mickey. This is the real McCoy . . .' She stopped and thought about that. 'No. Actually, he's the ship's doctor . . . Y'know what I mean. This is IT.'

Mister Spock had risen from the command chair and turned towards them. 'Greetings Doctor, Miss Tyler. Welcome back. Captain Kirk sends his apologies, as he's had to beam down to the planet.'

' _Look. It's Mister Spock!_ ' Mickey whispered to Rose.

Rose giggled at his excitement. 'Yeah. I know.'

The Doctor's interest had been piqued by Kirk's absence. 'Nothing serious I hope?'

'No. Doctor's orders required him to take some shore leave for rest and recuperation,' Spock informed him.

'Oh,' the Doctor said disappointedly.

"Whee-ee-woo". ['Bridge, this is the Captain,'] Kirk's voice said over the speakers.

Spock looked to Lieutenant Uhura as she opened the communication channel. 'Bridge.'

['Has the first shore party beamed down yet?'] Kirk asked.

'Negative, Captain. They're just about to start,' Uhura told him.

['Get this message to all shore parties. Stand by. No one is to leave the ship,'] Kirk ordered.

'Aye, aye, sir,' Uhura responded. "Whee-ee-woo". 'All crew preparing for shore leave stand by. No one is to leave the ship by order of the captain.'

'Trouble in paradise, Mister Spock?' the Doctor asked with raised eyebrows.

'Unfortunately Doctor, there is insufficient data to verify that there are any problems. All our sensor readings indicate that there are no animal life forms on the planet, and no dangerous plant life,' Spock told him.

'Hmmm. In that case, he wouldn't mind if we nipped down there for a quick look then,' the Doctor said cheekily. 'Rose and myself have quite a bit of experience in finding trouble and sorting it out.'

'You can say that again,' Rose said to herself.

'The captain did say specifically that no one was to leave the ship,' Spock reminded him.

'Yes, he did. But he preceded that with "all shore parties",' the Doctor said. 'And I know Rose and the Mickey-Myster here are wearing the uniform, but we are not members of the crew, and therefore not members of the shore party.'

Spock nodded at the Doctor's logic. 'And I presume that if I refused to transport you to the planet surface, you would leave in your ship and land on the planet surface anyway. Am I correct?'

The Doctor scratched the back of his ear. 'Wellll . . .'

Rose bumped shoulders with him. 'Oh, come on. Of course y'will.'

He put his hands back in his pockets and grinned. 'Okay. You got me. We would, yeah.'

'In that case, as a simple precaution, I would insist on you having a security escort. If you make your way to Transporter Room Two on deck seven, I will have a security officer meet you there,' Spock said.

The Doctor gave him an open mouthed smile. 'Thank you Mister Spock. That's very thoughtful.' He took Rose's hand and headed for the turbolift doors.

'Don't worry Mister Spock. I'll make sure he stays out of trouble,' Rose said as they stepped into the turbolift. Spock raised an eyebrow as if he doubted that claim.

'So we're not havin' a tour of the Enterprise?' Mickey asked.

The Doctor reached around Mickey's shoulders as the doors closed and gave him a one armed hug. 'Oh there's plenty of time for sightseeing Mickey-Boy. We've got an alien planet to explore.'

'Oh yeah. An alien planet,' Mickey realised with a smile. 'Brilliant.'


	3. Trouble In Paradise

**Author's notes:**

The next two chapters refer to events in the BBC novel "The Nightmare Of Black Island", by Mike Tucker. (Highly recommended)

 **Chapter 3**

 **Trouble In Paradise**

On the planet surface, Yeoman Tonia Barrows noticed some large animal tracks in the soil. 'Doctor McCoy's rabbit, sir. He must have gone through here.'

Kirk looked to where she was pointing. 'Are you sure our instruments didn't show any animal life on this planet?' he asked McCoy.

'Absolutely. No birds, no mammals, no insects, nothing. I'm certain our readings weren't off,' McCoy told him.

'I'd like to believe this is an elaborate gag, but . . . Yeoman Barrows, you accompany Mister Sulu. Find out where those tracks came from. Doctor, you come with me back to the glade. I'd like another look at that area,' Kirk ordered.

'This is turning out to be one very unusual shore leave,' Kirk said as they walked through the woods beside the pool.

'Well, it could have been worse,' McCoy quipped.

'How?'

'You could have seen the rabbit,' McCoy said with a lopsided smile.

Kirk laughed. 'What's the matter, Bones, you getting a persecution complex?'

'Well, yeah, I'm beginning to feel a little bit picked on, if that's what you mean.'

'I know the feeling very well. I had it at the Academy,' Kirk confessed. 'An upper classman there. One practical joke after another, and always on me. My own personal devil. A guy by the name of Finnegan.'

'And you being the very serious young . . .'

'Serious?' Kirk cut in. 'I'll make a confession, Bones. I was absolutely grim, which delighted Finnegan no end. He's the kind of guy to put a bowl of cold soup in your bed or a bucket of water propped on a half-open door. You never knew where he'd . . . strike next,' Kirk said as he spotted something on the ground. 'More tracks. Looks like your rabbit came from over there.'

McCoy looked in the direction Kirk was pointing. 'A girl's footprints. The young blonde girl I saw chasing it' he said with a click of his fingers.

'Yes,' Kirk agreed. 'You follow the rabbit. I'll backtrack the girl. I'll meet you around the other side of the hill.'

'Good. I've got a personal grudge against that rabbit, Jim.'

In another area of the glade, four shimmering bodies appeared under the shade of some trees.

'Hah!' Mickey exclaimed. 'We just beamed down.' He turned to the Doctor and Rose. 'Did you see that? We were standing on the transporter pad, and it faded into this place.'

'Yeah. We saw it Mickey,' Rose answered as she looked around the beautiful glade.

'And this place . . . It's alien. Look, alien plants an' everythin'. I'm on an alien planet!'

'Careful Mickey,' the Doctor warned. 'Too much excitement isn't good for you. Breath . . . Take some deep breaths.'

Lieutenant Craig Osborne switched on his tricorder and started scanning. 'The captain should be close by.'

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and started searching for Kirk's communicator transponder, when they heard a woman's scream in the distance. He grabbed Rose's hand and started running. 'This way.'

'Here we go again,' said Rose.

'Careful,' Osborne warned them, 'We may be running into danger.'

'If we're lucky,' the Doctor told him.

'Is this what you two get up to when you're galavantin' about?' Mickey asked.

'Not really,' Rose said as she dodged through the undergrowth.

'Rarely,' the Doctor corrected her. 'Welll, occasionally . . . Oh who am I kidding. Pretty much all of the time.'

Mickey cast her a sideways glance as they ran. 'Your mum'll go nuts if she ever finds out.'

They arrived on the scene to find Tonia disheveled and hugging a tree. Her uniform was torn at the shoulder.

'What happened?' Kirk and the Doctor asked together.

'I don't know,' Tonia said as she stood up. Rose helped her up and put a comforting arm around her. 'I mean I do know. I was following the tracks, and there he was.'

'Who was?' Kirk asked.

'Him,' she said. Too shocked to give a proper answer. The Doctor started to scan the area for the assailant.

'Barrows, give me a report,' Kirk ordered.

'Oi. Lay off her,' Rose said angrily. 'Can't yer see she's in shock.'

Tonia looked at Rose in alarm. Because of her uniform, she thought that Rose was a member of the crew, and had spoken to her captain disrespectfully. She squeezed Rose's arm in gratitude of her support. 'Thank you Yeoman. It's okay, the captain's right . . . He had a cloak, sir, and a dagger with jewels on it.'

'Are you sure you're not imagining all this?' Kirk asked her.

'And tore her own dress?' the Doctor suggested.

'Captain, I know it sounds incredible, but I did not imagine it. And as this man said, I didn't imagine he did this,' she said, indicating the torn fabric around the shoulder and neck of her uniform.

'Sounds like Don Juan,' McCoy suggested.

'Yes. Yes . . . It was so sort of story book walking around here . . . and I was thinking, all a girl needs is Don Juan . . . Just daydreaming, the way you would about someone you'd like to meet.'

'Who's Don Juan?' Mickey asked.

The Doctor had found no evidence of an assailant with his sonic screwdriver and put it back in his pocket as he explained. 'Fourteenth century fictional womaniser created by Gabriel Téllez, using the nom de plume of Tirso de Molina.'

'What? Yer tellin' me that she was attacked by a character from a story?' Rose asked.

'Hey. I'm surrounded by 'em at the moment,' Mickey reminded her, which got puzzled looks from the four Starfleet officers.

'Obviously it's someone who's acting out the part of Don Juan,' the Doctor said. 'But who?'

'Mister Sulu was with you. Where is he now?' Kirk asked, getting back to the point.

'He ran after him,' Tonia reported.

'Stay with her, Doctor,' Kirk said.

The Doctor was about to protest, when McCoy nodded and started checking Tonia for injuries. 'Ah . . . Right. That doctor,' he said with a nod.

'Doctor. Rose. Good to see you again, but what are you doing here? I sent instructions for no one to leave the ship,' Kirk said.

'Did you?' the Doctor said innocently. 'I think Mister Spock interpreted that as members of the crew going on shore leave. He kindly sent Lieutenant Osborne though to look after us. Bit of a novelty for us really. We normally just go blundering about on our own.'

Kirk looked at Mickey, thinking he was a security ensign. 'Lieutenant Osborne, where's this man's phaser?'

'He's not . . .' Osborne started to say.

'Eh?' Mickey said with a frown, and then realised there was a misunderstanding. 'Oh, no. I'm not with him,' he said, pointing to Osborne with his left thumb. 'I'm with them.' He pointed to the Doctor and Rose with his right thumb. 'The names Mickey. Mickey Smith.'

'Right,' Kirk said dismissively. 'Lieutenant, stay here and protect the civilians. I'm going to follow Mister Sulu.' He made off in the direction Tonia had indicated. 'Mister Sulu . . ! Sulu!' they heard him shouting off in the distance.

'Right, we'd better try and find this person,' the Doctor said. 'I want to know how he can be here when Mister Spock said there were no animal life forms.'

'Maybe he's some kind of vegetable,' Mickey suggested.

'Hmm. Like the trees from the Forest of Cheam. Good thought Mickey,' the Doctor said with an encouraging smile. 'Tonia. Did your attacker have skin like the bark of a tree?'

'No. He had normal skin,' Tonia replied.

'Okay. Not a tree then.' He looked at Rose. 'We'll cover more ground if we split up. Rose, you take Mickey and try and keep him out of trouble. Craig, you're with me.'

'Oi!' Mickey said indignantly.

Rose laughed. 'He's windin' you up.'

The security officer hesitated. He'd been given his orders from the captain, and now this tall, thin man with spiky hair was trying to give him more. 'The captain said I was to protect you here.'

'Well. If you stay here to protect us, you'll have a bit of a job, because we won't be here. And unless you're going to use that gun,' the Doctor said with a look of distaste. '. . . put it away. Off we go then. Allons-y.'

He headed off into the undergrowth to the left of where Kirk had headed, with Osborne trailing behind. Rose took Mickey's hand and went to the right.

* * *

The Doctor was leading the way through the woods, scanning ahead of him with his sonic screwdriver, which was whistling away.

'What is that device?' Osborne asked him.

'What, this?' the Doctor said. 'It's a sonic screwdriver.' He carried on scanning and frowned at the holographic readings displayed above the glowing blue tip.

'A screwdriver?'

'No. Not JUST a screwdriver. It's a SONIC screwdriver. It's like a Swiss army knife. You know, lots of functions in one handy-dandy little device . . . And right now, it's showing a complex energy field . . . Very sophisticated,' the Doctor explained.

A tree to the side of them moved forward. Osborne grabbed his phaser and pointed it at the woman shaped tree.

'We meet again Doctor,' Jabe said.

'Jabe? Is that you?' He saw Osborne holding the phaser and rolled his eyes. 'Oh put that away.' He turned back to Jabe. 'How can you be here? I saw you burn on Platform One.'

Jabe smiled. 'When was that, Doctor? You're a time traveller. Work it out.'

'What?' he said with a frown.

She stepped forward and stroked his face. 'All that frowning. You'll wrinkle that new face.'

'What . . ? Oh, the face. Yes, it's new. And that's another thing, how did you know it was me?'

'You may have a new face, but it's still the same old Doctor. All these questions, not accepting anything at face value,' Jabe said.

'Yep. Kinda sums me up in a nutshell . . . Ooh, no offence . . . Nuts, trees.'

Jabe laughed. 'Are you still travelling with your concubine?'

'Don't let her hear you calling her that,' the Doctor said with a grin. 'She'll pull all your leaves off.'

He scanned Jabe and looked at the results. He pulled a face and slapped the sonic against his palm. He tried scanning again and got the same result.

'That energy field is interfering with the sonic,' he declared. 'Either that or someone's using a hairdryer.'

'And why do you need to scan me? You know who I am,' Jabe said with a smile.

'Ah. Well. You see, there's the problem. I know who you are pretending to be. You see, you were right when you said I was a time traveller. But I'm more than that, because I'm a Time Lord. The last of the Time Lords. And I've worked out that you can't be Jabe,' he told her. 'So what are you? Nesteen? Can't be Zygon, because you need a live host to maintain the image.'

'I am the Jabe you met on Platform One. Can't you just accept that and move on? I thought that we were friends, Doctor,' Jabe said.

'Yes. Jabe was my friend, if only briefly. But why have you appeared here, now? Who's blocking my sonic so that I can't scan you and find out what you are?' He tapped his temple with his fingers. 'Think, think, think . . . Doctor McCoy saw a big white rabbit, plain as day. And Alice chasing after it. Yeoman Burrows saw Don Juan . . .'

He clicked his fingers together in realisation. 'Tonia was thinking, "All a girl needs is Don Juan" . . . "Just daydreaming" she said.' He pointed at Jabe. 'And Mickey said, "Maybe he's some kind of vegetable", which made me think of you . . . I bet McCoy was thinking about "Alice in Wonderland". It's all about thoughts. Something is giving our thoughts substance.'

Lieutenant Osborne's communicator beeped for his attention.

['Calling Lieutenant Osborne,'] Rodriguez called.

'Osborne here. I can't read you very well. Is this Rodriguez?'

['This is all the volume I can get on this thing. Can't read you well, either. Captain's orders. Rendezvous at that glade where he first found you,'] Rodriguez told him.

'Right. What the devil's wrong with communications? Esteban. Esteban?' Osborne called out at the communicator.

The Doctor scanned the communicator. 'It's the energy field. It's interfering with communications. We'd better make our way back to the glade.'

'What about your companions Doctor? They're out there on their own where anything from their thoughts could attack them,' Osborne pointed out.

The Doctor stopped and thought. He looked at Osborne's communicator. 'Here, let me have that.'

'But the signal can't get through.'

'I can boost the signal with this,' he said, holding up the sonic. 'And Rose's phone has a super-duper upgrade.'

* * *

'Mister Sulu . . ! Sulu!' Kirk called out as he left the woods and entered some grassland. 'Sulu!'

He saw some orange flowers, and became wistful as he remembered where he'd last seen those flowers. When he looked up, he saw a lovely blonde woman, her dress half white, half black with roses on the left shoulder.

'Ruth?' he breathed. 'Ruth.'

The woman walked towards him. 'Jim, darling, it is me. It is Ruth,' she said, coming close and kissing him.

She sat on an outcrop of rock as Kirk flipped open his communicator. 'McCoy, do you read me?' There was no response, so he moved over to Ruth. 'Ruth. Ruth, how can it be you? How could you possibly be here?' He sat down next to her and stroked her cheek. 'You haven't aged. It's been fifteen years.'

'It doesn't matter,' she said as she sniffed the orange flower Kirk had picked earlier. 'None of that matters.'

Kirk's communicator beeped. 'Kirk here.'

['Did you find Mister Sulu, Captain?'] McCoy asked.

'What?' Kirk said distractedly as he stared at Ruth.

['Did you find Mister Sulu?']

'No, but I'm sure he's all right.'

McCoy heard the far away tone in Kirk's voice. ['Sir? Are you all right?']

'Yes, I'm fine,' he told him. He hadn't felt this good in fifteen years. He couldn't take his eyes off his past love.

The communicator beeped again. ['Rodriguez to Captain Kirk.']

'Yes, Mister Rodriguez.'

['Captain, a while ago, I saw well . . . birds, a whole flock of them,'] Rodriguez said.

'Don't you like birds, Mister Rodriguez?'

['I like them fine, sir, but all our surveys showed . . .']

'Then offhand I'd say our instruments are defective,' Kirk interrupted. 'There are indeed life-forms on this planet.'

['Sir, our surveys couldn't have been that wrong.'] That comment brought Kirk back to his senses.

'Mister Rodriguez, have the search parties rendezvous at the glade. I'd like some answers to all this.'

['Aye, aye, sir.']

'You have to go?' Ruth asked.

'I don't want to,' he confessed.

'You'll see me again if you want to.'

There was something Kirk still didn't understand. 'You haven't told me. You haven't told me . . .'

'Do what you have to do, and I'll be waiting.' She turned around and walked away.

'Ruth,' he called after her, and then his communicator beeped.

'Kirk here.'

['Captain,'] Spock said.

'Yes, Mister Spock.'

['I'm getting strange readings from the planet surface, Captain. Some sort of power field down there,] Spock reported.

'Specify.'

['A highly sophisticated type of energy draining our power and increasing, beginning to affect our communications.']

'Can you pinpoint the source?'

['Could be coming from beneath the planet's surface. Patterns indicate some sort of industrial activity.']

'Keep me posted, Mister Spock. We'll continue our investigation down here. Captain out.'

* * *

As Rose and Mickey traipsed through the woods, Mickey kept giving her a sideways glance and grinning. She stopped suddenly and faced him.

'What?' she demanded.

'Nothin',' he replied guiltily.

'No. There's somethin'. Ya keep grinnin' at me. Have I got somethin' on my back? A hole in my tights?'

'I can't help it Babe. I was just rememberin' how yer used to restock the sales floor at Henrick's, and how yer used to have a bag of chips on the bus on the way home,' he confessed. 'An' look at ya now, all brave an' kick ass. I can hardly believe you're the same girl I knew on the estate.'

'I'll kick her ass if she's not careful,' a cockney voice said from behind them.

'Mum?' Rose asked as she and Mickey turned around.

'Oh, remember me then do ya?' Jackie asked sarcastically. She was standing on the path with her hands on her hips, wearing a pink and grey tracksuit.

'Oh Mum. Come here,' Rose said and hugged her mother, before remembering where they were. 'Hang on a minute . . . How can you be here?' Rose asked in confusion.

'Well, I've got to be haven't I. It's been ages since you've been home. And I don't know why you have that phone, you never use it,'

Mickey was looking confused. 'But Jackie, we're on an alien planet light years from Earth. I think what Rose means is, how the hell did you get here?'

'How the 'ell should I know. It's probably somethin' to do with that mad alien yer travel with. An' another thing, What are yer doin' runnin' about on an alien planet lookin' for trouble?'

'Mum!' Rose said in a "not now" tone of voice. 'We're just tryin' to help out some friends.'

'What? Are these the friends yer met at a Star Trek convention?' she said looking them up and down.

'What?' Rose asked, looking down at her mini dress. 'No. These are Starfleet uniforms. We're just . . . It's complicated Mum.'

'Yeah. An' I bet it's dangerous an' all,' Jackie said, crossing her arms.

'Well. A woman was attacked,' Mickey told her. 'The bloke ran off into these woods an' we're tryin' to find 'im.'

Rose elbowed him in the ribs to be quiet.

'I knew it!' Jackie exclaimed. '"Trouble's just the bits in between". My arse.'

Mickey winced at the thought of bits between Jackie's bum cheeks. 'Er, y'might want to rephrase that, Jackie.'

Rose's phone started to beep, and she reached down inside the wide collar of her uniform to pull it out of her bra. She looked at Mickey, who had a wicked grin on his face.

'What?' she said. She patted her hips. 'No pockets.'

['Rose?'] the Doctor said as she answered the call.

'Doctor! Where are ya?'

['Rose. You ne*d to *et back to the glade,'] he told her through the crackly signal. ['This planet reads your tho*ghts. It's like the Cynrog's Lord Balor at Ynys Du in Wales t*at time. Re*ember? They turned pe*ple's nightmares into real creatures?']

'Tell me about it. I've got a real nightmare in front of me right now,' Rose said.

Mickey snorted a laugh, and Jackie huffed in annoyance.

['What? Ar* you in d*nger?'] he asked urgently.

'Only of gettin' a slap,' she replied cryptically.

['Er, okay. I'll se* you and M*ckey bac* at the g*ade.']

'Okay. See ya soon.'

She ended the call and was about to put her phone back in her bra, when she saw Mickey and Jackie looking at her. She gave them a lopsided smile and turned her back to them to put her phone away.

'Okay. Mickey, we've got to get back to the glade,' she said as she turned around again. 'Mum, or whoever you are. We've got to go now.'

'All right then Sweetheart. I'll see ya later. An' Mickey, you look after her. Right?' Jackie said, pointing a finger at him before turning around and heading back into the undergrowth.


	4. Friends And Foes

**Chapter 4**

 **Friends And Foes**

'You're the science officer, Mister Spock. I want some answers,' Kirk said as he stood on a rocky outcrop, talking into the communicator. 'First there was McCoy's Alice in Wonderland where there was supposedly no animal life. And Sulu's gun where there's no refined metal detected. Rodriguez' birds. And then my . . . well, the two people I saw.'

['Any chance these could be hallucinations?'] Spock asked.

'One hallucination flattened me with a clout on the jaw,' Kirk told him, rubbing the bruise. He'd had a fist fight with an old tormentor from his academy days. 'The other . . .'

['That sounds like a painful reality,'] Spock agreed.

'Yes.'

['There must be some logical explanation . . . Your signal is very weak. Can you turn up your gain?']

'I'm already on maximum.'

['Captain, shall I beam down an armed party?']

'Negative. Our people here are armed with phasers. Besides, there's yet to be any real danger,' he said, as he watched a skein of geese fly overhead. 'Captain out.'

He re-tuned his communicator to contact Doctor McCoy. 'McCoy. McCoy, do you read me? Kirk to McCoy. Come in.'

Suddenly, Sulu came running over the rocks towards him. 'Captain, take cover! There's a Samurai after me.'

'A what?'

Sulu looked back to where he had come from. 'I mean, there was . . .' No one appeared to be following him. 'Captain, you've got to believe me.'

'I do. I've met some interesting personalities myself. Have you seen any of the others while I've been gone?'

'Got a call a few minutes ago. Rodriguez. Said you were rendezvousing back at the glade.'

'I hope he got through to everybody. Communications are almost out.'

'That's not all. So's my phaser.'

Kirk checked his own weapon and saw it was drained. 'Yeah. We'd better get to the glade.'

'Yes, sir.' As they started to move out, they heard the sound of a transporter beam. Sulu pointed at a the top of a large rock. 'Look. Someone beaming down from the bridge.'

'Trying to,' Kirk observed. 'Something's obstructing it.' Finally the familiar shape fully materialised. 'Mister Spock, my orders were no one was to leave the ship.'

'Necessary, Captain. Unable to contact you by communicator, and the transporter is useless to us now. As I told you before, there's an unusual power field down here. It's soaking up all the energy at the source. I calculated the rate of its growth, and reasoned that I just might be able to transport one more person,' Spock explained.

'Good. We can use your help,' said Kirk.

'We're stranded down here, Captain?' Sulu realised.

'Until we can find out what this is all about,' Kirk agreed.

* * *

The Doctor and Osborne made their way through the woods, back towards the glade rendezvous.

'You said that you'd seen something like this before?' Osborne asked, referring to the conversation he'd overheard between the Doctor and Rose.

'Yes. Back on Earth. A bunch of lizard aliens called the Cynrog were trying to resurrect their war god, Balor the Destroyer. His ship had crashed near a small village on the Welsh coast,' he started to explain.

'When was this?' Osborne asked. 'I don't remember seeing a report about it.'

'Oh, it was years ago,' the Doctor said dismissively. 'And to be fair, you wouldn't have seen a report because me and Rose managed to sort it out without too much fuss. Anyway, before he died, Balor transferred his consciousness into the brains of seven children in the hope that his followers would find him. Decades later, they did, and installed a psychic transmitter in a lighthouse to tap into the children's dreams and create a new body for their lord.'

'What's a lighthouse?' Osborne asked with interest. They hadn't existed on Earth for over a century.

'Ah, right. Tall, round building with a light on top to warn ships about submerged rocks,' the Doctor explained.

'Oh, right,' Osborne said with raised eyebrows. 'And the psychic transmitter gave the creatures in their dreams substance.'

'Exactly. Fortunately for the human race, the Cynrog didn't realise that an eighth child had Balor's intelligence in her head. They'd inadvertently created a mindless monster which was destroyed by the mundane dreams of adults . . . I think something here is also giving substance to our imaginings,' the Doctor said.

'What? Something like that?' Osborne said, pointing along the trail ahead of them. A creature with six powerful insect-like legs stepped out from the undergrowth, the claws at their tips gleaming and sharpened.

'Ah . . . Probably shouldn't have told you about Balor,' the Doctor said as he scratched the back of his head. 'Not on a planet that turns your thoughts into reality, anyway.'

Over the creatures back was a segmented, scorpion-like tail, poison dripping from the spines that studded its length. Hard, chitinous plates covered its back and arms, studded with wickedly barbed spines. Its back was hunched and muscular, the thick neck wreathed with writhing tentacles. Its head was flat and elongated, the brain protected by a hard, bony plate flaring out to an armoured frill, like a dinosaur. The black eyes blazed from beneath a heavy brow and row upon row of curving teeth gnashed in the wide mouth.

'Yep,' the Doctor said. 'It would be something exactly like that.'

Osborne drew his phaser, set it to it's highest setting and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened,

'What the hell,' he said as he checked the weapon. 'It's drained.'

'Then I suggest we RUN!' the Doctor said and set off into the woods.

They heard Balor bellow a roar and come crashing through the undergrowth behind them. They had a slight advantage, as they could dodge between the trees more easily than the large scorpion-like monster. Balor had to maneuver around the larger tree trunks, but just flattened the smaller trees as he ran over them.

'How did you destroy this thing before?' Osborne asked as they ran.

'We'd need a psychic transmitter set in reverse, and a village full of ordinary people with ordinary problems,' the Doctor explained. 'Bit of an ask at the moment.'

'Yeah. And I can't shoot it because my phaser's dead. Neither can I call the ship to beam us out or fire the ship's phasers at it,' Osborne said. 'Any ideas?'

The Doctor suddenly stopped. 'An idea. Of course!'

Osborne bumped into him. 'Eh?'

'Philosophy,' the Doctor said, as though it was obvious. He pinched his finger and thumb together. 'Ideas are usually taken as mental representational images of an object.' He grabbed Osborne's face and kissed his forehead. 'Craig, you-are-brilliant . . ! Now run for your life.'

As they ran, the trees started to thin out, which meant that Balor was now gaining on them. It also meant that they could see what they were running towards.

'What the hell is that?' Osborne called out, pointing at something bronze and metallic in the clearing.

'DUCK,' the Doctor called out, and pushed Osborne to the ground.

' **Exterminate!** ' a screechy voice called out from a bronze coloured, oversized pepper pot. A beam of green energy passed over their heads and hit one of Balor's legs.

'This way,' the Doctor said, moving to the side of the trail. 'And keep low. If that thing sees you, it will kill you as well.'

' **Exterminate!** ' Another beam of energy hit Balor, and another. The creature reared up as it prepared to strike, but more beams of energy hit it, and it started to stagger and sway as though intoxicated.

' **Exterminate!** ' the Dalek screeched, as a final beam hit Balor on the frilled, bony plate of his head. The creatures legs crumpled under its body, and it crashed to the ground.

'What was that thing?' Osborne asked.

'A Dalek,' the Doctor told him. 'A pathological xenophobe. It destroys everything that isn't Dalek . . . Never thought I'd be so pleased to see one.'

'So you've replaced one thing that wanted to kill us with another,' Osborne noted.

The Doctor stopped running. 'All right,' he said in a high pitched, annoyed tone and then huffed. 'No pleasing some people.'

'Well it is kind of "out of the frying pan and into the fire", isn't it.'

'Right. Hold on,' the Doctor said and closed his eyes. A few seconds later he opened them and gave Osborne a big grin. 'That should do it.'

'Do what? What have you done? What's coming to kill us now?' Osborne asked, looking back along the trail.

'You know the old lady who swallowed a fly?' the Doctor asked cryptically.

'No,' Osborne replied.

'Well. She swallowed a spider to catch the fly, and then swallowed bird to catch the spider,' the Doctor explained. 'A bit absurd to swallow a bird. It would have drowned in the digestive juices of the stomach . . . She really shouldn't have tried to self medicate. She should have called me, the Doctor.'

' **Exterminate!** ' they heard through the trees.

'Oh you reckon?' an American accent replied. 'Exterminate this.'

They heard the "whump" of a plasma rifle discharge, followed by what sounded like a tin of baked beans exploding.

'Hah!' the Doctor laughed. 'Faith can move mountains, but an idea can destroy a Dalek . . . OVER HERE JACK!'

'Who is that? Osborne asked, as a fit looking man in tight, leather trousers, white T-shirt, and leather waistcoat approached, carrying a plasma cannon over his shoulder.

'Doctor. Long time no see. Good to see you again,' Jack Harkness said with his perfect, white toothed smile.

'You too Jack. Lieutenant Craig Osborne, meet Captain Jack Harkness,' the Doctor said.

'Well hello Craig Osborne. Nice to make your acquaintance,' Jack said, shaking Osborne's hand as he looked him up and down.

'Er, nice to meet you too Captain. Thank you for coming to our aid,' Osborne said.

The Doctor snorted a laugh. 'Sorry Craig. I tried to leave Jack's personality out of the mix when I thought about him. Guess it's too deeply embedded.'

'Hey,' Jack said with a hurt expression on his face. 'I was only saying hello.'

'You never ONLY say hello,' the Doctor responded.

Jack flashed that perfect smile at Osborne. 'He knows me so well.' He turned to the Doctor. 'So where we heading?'

The Doctor pointed in the general direction of the glade. 'Thataway.'

* * *

Rose and Mickey were strolling hand in hand back towards the glade, enjoying the beautiful surroundings.

'So, what was that the Doctor was on about then?' Mickey asked. 'That thing in Wales?'

'Oh yeah. There were these lizard aliens tryin' to make a body for their warlord from the nightmares of the children in this village,' Rose remembered.

'What was it like?' Mickey asked. 'Cos we don't want any nightmare monsters showin' up here.'

'I never saw the monster. I was in a lighthouse with this little girl called Ali. She was brilliant . . . so brave. She crawled under the alien's thought machine and reversed it, just like the Doctor told her,' Rose explained.

'Sounds like a girl I know,' Mickey said with a grin.

Rose smiled at him and hugged his arm. 'Ahh, thanks Mickey.'

'No, I mean it. Like I said before, you've changed. I'm loathe to say it . . . But the Doctor's been good for you,' Mickey said begrudgingly.

'Hey. It's not just me. He's been good for you too, and for the whole universe,' Rose replied.

'Me?'

'Yeah, you. I know he winds ya up, that's just him teasin' ya, havin' a bit of fun. But on that ship, you were there with the fire extinguisher, ready to do battle with those clockwork robots,' Rose reminded him.

Mickey sniffed and puffed out his chest. 'Yeah, I was wasn't I . . . Yeah, you're right.'

'Who's your friend Rose?' a girl's voice with a Welsh accent asked from behind them.

Rose knew who it was before she even turned around. She'd just been imagining her as she told Mickey about her. 'Hello Ali. This is Mickey.'

'Hello Mickey,' Ali said.

Rose leaned forwards and scooped the ten year old girl up in a hug, carrying her on her hip. She was wearing the T-shirt, blue jeans, and white trainers that she'd been wearing when Rose had last seen her, sitting on the seawall of Ynys Du, eating an ice cream cone.

'Mickey Smith, meet Ali Hardy,' Rose said as she started walking along, a big smile on her face.

'Hello Ali. Rose has just been tellin' me how brilliant you are.'

Ali grinned and hugged Rose around the neck. 'She's not bad herself. Pretty brave y'know . . . and that funny man she travels with.'

Mickey laughed. 'Yeah. Yer not wrong there.'

They heard a distant bellowing roar off to the left, which made the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end.

Ali's eyes went wide in fear and her face drained of colour. 'Rose! That sounded like . . .'

'I know,' Rose interrupted. 'The monsters from your nightmares.' She put Ali down and stroked her hair. 'Stay here Sweetheart, it might be dangerous. It sounds like someone's been thinkin' about those monsters, an' I'll give ya three guesses who.'

'The Doctor. The Doctor, and . . . The Doctor,' Ali said, counting off on her fingers.

Rose gave her a lopsided smile. 'Right on all three counts. C'mon Mickey, let's go an' see what's goin' on.'

'Eh?' Mickey said with a worried expression. 'Did you hear that thing? It didn't sound that friendly to me. An' you said it might be dangerous. An' if you hadn't noticed, we ain't got no weapons . . . Not even a fire extinguisher.'

'Men!' Ali said, rolling of her eyes. 'I'll come with you Rose.'

Mickey realised that his masculinity was being challenged by a slip of a ten year old girl. 'Er, no,' he said with some authority. 'This is somethin' for adults to sort out . . . You're right Rose. Someone might be in trouble.'

Rose winked at Ali. 'See ya later.'

She grabbed Mickey's hand and ran off in the direction of the sound of trees being flattened by a rampaging elephant. There was a rough track through the undergrowth, which had tree roots and vines which they had to jump over and dodge past. Suddenly, through the stand of trees, they saw the canopy illuminated by a bright flash of brilliant bluish, white light.

Mickey pulled Rose to a stop. 'What was that!'

'Dunno,' Rose answered honestly, as she started to walk forwards cautiously.

Rose thought about the time when the Doctor and Jack had rescued her from the Daleks when they had transmatted her to their ship. Jack had used a big gun to zap the Dalek, and that had given off a bright, bluish white light.

'It could 'ave been some kind of energy weapon,' She told Mickey.

'Well? Is that good, or bad?' He asked nervously.

'Well I don't hear no herd of elephants crashing through the trees anymore,' Rose pointed out.

'Oh yeah . . . Can you hear voices?'

'It must be the Doctor and the security man, Craig,' Rose reasoned.

As they got closer, the voices became clearer.

'You never ONLY say hello,' they heard the Doctor say.

'He knows me so well . . . So where we heading?' they heard an American say.

Mickey frowned. 'Hang on. I've heard that voice before.'

'Thataway,' the Doctor said.

When Mickey and Rose reached the source of the voices, they could see the smoking lower half of a Dalek propulsion system, and the back of the Doctor, Craig, and a "fit" guy in tight, leather trousers, white T-shirt, and leather waistcoat, walking away from them.

'JACK?!' Rose called out.

The three of them turned around, and Jack gave her an open mouthed smile.

'ROSIE!'

Jack handed the plasma rifle to the Doctor without looking, and ran towards her. The Doctor looked at it with disgust and handed it to Craig.

Jack scooped her up in a hug. 'How's my best girl then.'

'Better for seeing you again,' she said with a squeal as he swung her around.

Jack put her down and held her hands out to her sides. 'Looking good, may I say. That outfit suits you, kinda sexy. Did I ever tell you I love a woman in uniform?'

Rose gave him a coy smile. 'Lookin' good yerself.'

'Er. Rose. You do realise that isn't Jack, don't you?' the Doctor reminded her.

'Hey. If he looks like Jack, an' talks like Jack, and flirts like Jack . . . Then it's Jack,' Rose said with a laugh.

'And look who else it is,' Jack said, releasing Rose's hands and grabbing Mickey in a hug. 'Mickey Mouse, exploring the universe.'

'Okay, Captain Cheesecake,' Mickey said awkwardly. 'Enough huggin'.'

'Oh, okay,' Jack said, putting him down. 'Maybe Craig's in need of a hug.'

Rose snorted a laugh as Craig visibly paled.

'Er, no. I'm fine at the moment, thanks.' He looked down and realised he was holding Jack's gun. He hurriedly handed it back. 'We'd better be going. The captain's expecting us at the rendezvous.'

'You kids go and have fun,' Jack said. 'I'll hang around here in case anything else pops up.'

'Off we go then,' the Doctor said. 'Allons-y'

'See ya later Jack,' Rose called out.

'You will if you want to, Gorgeous,' Jack replied.


	5. Two Deaths Too Many

**Chapter 5**

 **Two Deaths Too Many**

Yeoman Barrows and Doctor McCoy arrived at the glade rendezvous hand-in-hand. Barrows had replaced her torn uniform with a fairytale princess gown that she'd mysteriously found waiting for her beside the lake.

'There's no one here,' she noticed as they looked around.

'This is where the Captain said to rendezvous,' McCoy told her. He suddenly held Tonia's arm and guided her to stand with her back to a tree. 'I swear I heard someone moving around.'

'Don't talk like that,' Tonia said. She didn't want to meet Don Juan again.

McCoy smiled at her. 'A princess shouldn't be afraid, not with a brave knight to protect her.'

Not long after he'd said that, a knight in armour on a black horse appeared at the far side of the glade, advancing menacingly towards them. Tonia came and stood by McCoy's side.

'These things cannot be real,' McCoy told her. How could anyone create these things so quickly he reasoned.

'Hallucinations can't harm us.' He held Tonia by the shoulders and guided her back towards the tree. 'Go back to where you were.'

Kirk and Spock arrived in the glade, just as the knight lowered his lance and charged at McCoy. The lance hit McCoy square in the chest and lifted him off his feet as it propelled him backwards Tonia screamed as McCoy's lifeless body hit the ground with a thud, a dark, bloody stain on the front of his blue sweatshirt.

The knight turned his steed, and started to charge towards Kirk and Spock. Spock drew his phaser, but couldn't get it to fire. He kept trying the settings. Kirk pulled out an old-time police special which he had confiscated from Sulu earlier. Sulu had found it and tried some target practice, causing a bit of a panic.

Kirk fired three rounds at the knight, who keeled over and fell from the horse. They ran over to McCoy, and Tonia ran over to kneel beside him. Kirk and Spock looked at each other without speaking.

'He's dead,' Tonia sobbed. 'It's my fault. It never would have happened. It's my fault.' It was her thoughts of fairy tale princesses which had produced the clothing she was wearing, which in turn made McCoy think of brave knights.

'No,' Kirk told her. On an uninhabited planet, how could she be blamed for any of this.

But she had convinced herself of her guilt. 'It is, it is. I'm to blame.'

Kirk grabbed her shoulders and stood her up. 'Yeoman! We're in trouble. I need every crewman alert and thinking.'

She realised that her commanding officer was correct. What had happened to McCoy could happen to any of them. She stood to attention. 'Aye, aye, sir.'

Sulu had arrived on the scene and was examining the knight's body. There was something not right about the the corpse. 'Captain! Captain!'

Kirk hurried over to see what Sulu had found out.

'You'd better have a look at this, sir. I don't understand,' Sulu said.

Kirk could see the knight's face through the raised visor of it's helmet. It looked human, and yet the skin didn't look quite right. It appeared to have a plastic complexion. 'Neither do I, Mister Sulu, but before we leave this planet, I will.'

'It's like a dummy, Captain. It couldn't be alive.' Sulu had obviously never met the Nesteen.

'Tricorder?' Kirk asked.

'Still operating, sir.'

Kirk called over to his science officer. 'Mister Spock.' Spock walked over, and Sulu handed over his tricorder. 'What do you make of that?'

Spock activated the tricorder and scanned the knight's face.

'This is not human skin tissue, Captain. It more closely resembles the cellular casting we use for wound repairs. Much finer, of course,' Spock reported.

'I want an exact judgment, Mister Spock.'

'This is definitely a mechanical contrivance. It has the same basic cell structure as the plants here, even the trees, the grass.'

Kirk frowned. 'Are you saying this is a plant, Mister Spock?'

'I'm saying that these are all multicellular castings. The plants, the animals, the people. They're all being manufactured.'

'By who? And why? And why these particular things?'

'All we know for certain is that they act exactly like the real thing. Just as pleasant or just as deadly,' Spock said ominously.

There was a drone of aircraft engines in the air, and the sound of machine gun fire. Something resembling Grumman F4F Wildcats flew overhead. Everyone looked up to watch the planes fly over, and then Sulu noticed that something was missing.

'Captain!'

Kirk walked over to him, and looked to where he was pointing. 'McCoy's body?'

'He's gone,' Sulu declared. 'Dragged off.'

'The black knight, too,' Tonia realised.

Kirk ran back to where Spock was standing. 'Spock?'

'At this point, Captain, my analysis may not sound very scientific,' Spock warned him.

'McCoy's death is a scientific fact,' Kirk said angrily.

Without knowledge of the Cynrog, or the Nesteen Autons, Spock had eventually come to the same logical conclusion as the Doctor.

'There is one slight possibility, very slim, but nevertheless . . . Captain, what were your thoughts just before you encountered the people you described?'

'I was . . . I was thinking about the Academy . . . My days . . .' He stopped talking when he saw his old adversary again.

'Hey, Jim baby!' Finnegan taunted. 'I see you brought out reinforcements. Ha! Well, I'm waiting for you, Jimmy boy.'

Kirk pointed at him. 'Finnegan. FINNEGAN . . !' Finnegan offered him on with his hands. 'What's been happening to my people?' Finnegan laughed and then ran off.

It was a red rag to a bull. Kirk was getting really pissed off. 'Take Sulu. Find McCoy's body. This man is my problem,' he told Spock.

Spock knew that Finnegan wasn't real. 'Captain, wait.'

'That's an order, Mister Spock,' he said and ran off after Finnegan.

* * *

Rose walked arm-in-arm with the Doctor as they headed for the glade. 'We heard a monster roaring earlier,' Rose told him.

'Oh yeah. That was the Cynrog warlord, Balor the Destroyer,' the Doctor replied.

'Ah, Ali thought it might have been one of her nightmares.'

'What? You've seen little Ali Hardy?' the Doctor asked with an open mouthed smile.

'Oi. Remember, she says she isn't little,' Rose reminded him. 'An' I've seen my mum.'

'Oof. Glad I missed that one.'

Rose laughed, and they continued walking. Rose happened to glance down at her legs.

'Y'know, I really must ask Janice if she's got anymore of these tights,' she thought out loud.

'Eh? How's that?' the Doctor asked.

'These tights. I've been runnin' through woods and undergrowth, and they've not snagged or gone in a hole or anythin'. They're brilliant,' she explained.

'They must be essential issue on an away mission,' he replied with a grin.

'Is that someone up ahead?' Mickey asked from behind them.

They looked further along the trail, and saw a yellow tunic and blue sweatshirt through the trees.

'It's Rodriguez and Teller,' Osborne told them. 'ESTEBAN . . . ANGELA!'

The pair turned and looked in their direction. Esteban Rodrigeuz had the typical, mediterranean appearance of black hair and swarthy complexion. Angela Teller on the other hand, was an attractive, petite, fair skinned woman with auburn hair and elvish looks.

'Craig? Is that you?' she asked.

'Yeah. We're making our way back to the glade,' he told them.

'Us too. Have you seen it?' Esteban asked, referring to a tiger that they had seen earlier.

'Seen which "it",' the Doctor asked. 'We've seen a few "its" while we've been here. Which is odd when you think about "it". There aren't supposed to be any "its" on this planet.'

Esteban had a puzzled expression on his face. Who was this strange man? 'The tiger . . . back there.'

'A tiger?!' the Doctor said in a disbelieving tone of voice. 'Why in God's name were you thinking about tigers?'

'Why were you thinkin' about Jack?' Rose countered teasingly.

'Oh that. I needed someone to shoot the Dalek,' the Doctor said as though it was obvious.

'Oh yeah. What was all that about?'

'It was the first thing that came into my head that would be powerful enough to destroy Balor.'

'Was that the smokin' robot we saw?' Mickey asked. He remembered Rose talking about the Daleks when the old Doctor had sent her back home in the TARDIS.

'What was left of it, yeah,' Rose replied.

'We'd better get moving,' Craig said, and started moving along the trail.

'Who are these crewmembers,' Esteban asked as he fell in step with Craig.

'Ah. We're not crewmembers,' Rose confessed. 'I'm Rose. This is Mickey, and that's the Doctor.'

'Nice to meet you,' Angela said with a welcoming smile. 'But how come you're wearing the uniform?'

'Ah. Long story,' the Doctor replied. 'Involving rickety bridges, rivers of mud, and tribbles.'

'Tribbles!' Esteban exclaimed. 'Now I remember. You're the couple who put out a category one distress call from Sherman's Planet.'

'Sort of,' the Doctor replied sheepishly. 'Although to be honest, it was our ship that put out the call.'

They heard the distant drone of aircraft engines as they continued walking, and looked up to the sky.

'If I'm not mistaken, that sounds like a Wright R-1820 "Cyclone 9" radial engine,' the Doctor said.

'Of all the crazy things,' Esteban said. 'Remember what I was telling you a while ago, about the early wars and funny air vehicles they used?' He said to Angela, pointing at the approaching aircraft. 'That's one of them.'

'Can it hurt us?' Angela asked.

'Not unless it makes a strafing run,' he replied.

'A what?'

'It's the way they attack people on the ground,' the Doctor explained. 'They dive down and fly low, skimming the tree tops.

'Y'mean like those are doin' now,' Mickey observed.

'Yeah. Just like that,' the Doctor replied. He grabbed Rose's hand. 'Come on.'

They ran along the trail, flinching as two tracks of foliage exploded either side of them where the half inch calibre bullets hit the ground.

'Quick! Into the trees,' the Doctor called to the group.

The second plane started it's strafing run, and Rose looked over her shoulder to see the two tracks of bullets veering off towards Angela on the edge of the group.

'ANGELA! LOOK OUT!,' she shouted, and pushed her to the side. This forced Angela into the path of a tree and her head bounced off the trunk. She fell backwards, unconscious.

Rose however, did not fare as well. Her left shoulder was turned towards Angela, and a half inch round blasted through her lower ribs, tore through her left lung, and exited to the right of her navel. The impact spun her around and a second round shattered her right shoulder blade, the ribs below it, and tore through her right lung, exiting just below her breast bone. She spiralled to the ground with a gasp of pain.

The Doctor had heard her call out the warning, and turned to see her get hit and fall to the ground.

'ROSE! NO!' he shouted as he ran towards her.

Mickey had also seen her fall. 'Rose? No-no-no-no-no. This ain't happenin'.'

They fell to their knees either side of her. The Doctor gently lifted her head and cradled it, as Mickey held her hand and rubbed it.

'Rose? Rose? I'm here,' Mickey said quietly. 'It's going to be all right.'

'Doctor?' Rose groaned. On any other occasion, Mickey would have been miffed about her calling out the Doctor's name, but he was too worried about Rose to care.

'I'm here Rose. Don't try to talk.'

'I'm sorry,' she muttered. 'I didn't think it would end like this.'

'Hey, this isn't the end . . . and it's me who should be sorry,' he told her. 'Wittering on about radial engines when I should have been getting everyone under cover.'

'You didn't know those pilots would think we were the bad guys and attack,' she said, as she lifted her hand with the last of her ebbing strength and stroked his cheek. She gave a weak cough and blood trickled out of the corner of her mouth.

He took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned her body. The energy spike had disappeared, and he was able to see the internal damage. His hearts sank as he saw that one of the bullets had hit the pulmonary vessels. She was bleeding into her chest and she didn't have long if she didn't get treatment.

'We have to get her to the Enterprise, right now,' he told the group.

Esteban was kneeling beside Angela, calling her name and stroking her forehead. 'I think she has a concussion. I'll stay with her until she comes around.'

'Maybe Doctor McCoy has something in his medikit that could stabiliser her,' Mickey suggested.

'Worth a try,' the Doctor said. He put one arm around her shoulders and the other under her thighs and lifted her into his arms. 'Mickey, lead the way.'

Mickey hurried on ahead, and the Doctor strode after him. They reached the clearing and saw Sulu on his own.

'Sulu! Where's Doctor McCoy?' the Doctor called out.

'Doctor, what's happened?' Sulu asked as he ran towards them.

'We were attacked by some aircraft. Rose was shot. We need to get her to the Enterprise straight away. We need McCoy to stabilise her,' the Doctor told him.

'I'm afraid Doctor McCoy is dead.'

'Dead?' Mickey queried.

'Yeah. A . . . a knight on horseback ran him through with a lance, and then his body was taken,' Sulu explained.

'And the Enterprise?' the Doctor asked as he knelt down and laid Rose on the grass.

'Communications are still out, and Mister Spock only just managed to beam down before the transporter became inoperable,' Sulu told him.

'NO!' the Doctor shouted. 'NO . . . She's dying. She needs to get to the Enterprise. NOW!'

'But you can fix it,' Mickey said. 'You've got the TARDIS. You can go back and save her.'

The Doctor had tears in his eyes as he looked down at Rose. 'No I can't, Mickey. This has happened in Rose's timeline and my timeline. We've experienced this. If I try and change it, it creates a paradox. Our reality collapses and we all cease to exist.'

'But we can't just give up,' Mickey protested. 'I'm not just goin' to stand here and watch her die.'

'Well what do you suggest we do then?' the Doctor asked angrily. He wasn't angry at Mickey. He was angry with himself for being so impotent.

'I dunno . . . Maybe we could think up a thoracic surgeon,' he suggested.

'Yes we could. But could you think how he does his job? His years of experience? No, neither could I.'

Rose coughed again and more blood tricked out of her mouth. 'Doctor,' she gasped. 'I can't breath.'

'I know Rose. I know.' He couldn't say anything else. He couldn't offer her any words of encouragement or solace, because there were none. He'd always had hope. He never gave in, never gave up, but now he was out of options.

Her breathing became stertorous and laboured as her collapsed lungs tried to suck in enough air to keep her alive. But she was fighting a losing battle as her chest cavity filled with blood. Her skin paled and her lips turned blue.

'Doctor,' she breathed. 'I . . . I lov . . .' Her eyes rolled back in her sockets and her head slumped to the side.

'Rose?' he whispered. 'Rose?'

Mickey stroked the hair from her face. 'Rose? C'mon babe.' He looked at the Doctor. 'You're the brilliant Doctor. Do somethin'.'

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and tried to scan. The energy spike was back, and he couldn't get any readings. He put two fingers to her neck, feeling for her carotid pulse, but felt nothing.

'I'm sorry,' he whimpered. 'I'm so sorry.' Sobs wracked his body as he rested his forehead against hers.

'NO!' Mickey roared.

He grabbed the lapels of the Doctor's jacket and started shaking him. 'This is your fault. Yours.'

'Don't you think I know that Mickey?'

'Do you? Do you really? 'Cause if you did know, you wouldn't have whisked her away in that mad box of yours, would ya?'

The Doctor visibly sagged. What could he say? Mickey was right. He'd been showing off to her. Showing her the universe and all the wonders in it. Showing her how clever he was, and now she was dead. Mickey released his lapels with a push, as he stood and went to find something to cover Rose's body. The Doctor fell backwards onto his backside.

'I'm sorry for your loss,' Sulu said quietly. The Doctor looked up at him and nodded his thanks.

Mickey saw Tonia step out of the bushes wearing her red tunic, and the fairytale gown draped over a shrub.

'Oh, hello,' she said as he approached.

'Er, hi . . . Do you think we could use that dress to cover Rose's body?' he asked hesitantly.

'Rose's body? What's happened?' she asked as she gathered up the gown and handed it to him.

'She was shot by an aeroplane.'

Tonia put her hands to her mouth and gasped. 'Oh my god. I saw those planes earlier.'

Mickey went back to Rose and knelt beside her. He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. 'Bye Rose,' he said, and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. Finally, he draped the gown carefully over her head and torso.


	6. Resurrections And Reunions

**Chapter 6**

 **Resurrections And Reunions**

Captain Kirk was running along a trail, looking for his old tormentor from his academy days.

'Here I am! Hah ha. Run!' Finnegan taunted as he ran from an adjoining track. Kirk tried to catch up with him, but he seemed to run impossibly fast.

When Kirk ran into a rocky area, Finnegan had managed to climb up onto one of the rocks.

'Jim!' he called out and dropped down out of sight. Kirk continued to chase after him.

'Find me! Can't you see me? Come and get me!' This time, Finnegan was on a high ridge, waving his arms and laughing at him. Kirk knew something wasn't right. There was no way he could have made it up there in that short space of time.

Kirk saw Finnegan on another ridge further away. 'Here I am! Come on. You never could find your head with both hands! Like it used to be, Jimmy. Remember?'

Kirk ran further on past Finnegan, who was lounging on a ledge above him. 'Hey, Jim.'

'I want some answers,' Kirk demanded.

'Coming up,' Finnegan said with a smile and leaped through the air onto Kirk. They started wrestling on the ground, before getting to their feet and starting a fist fight.

'Get up. Get up. Get up,' Finnegan demanded. 'Always fight fair, don't you? True officer and gentleman, you. You stupid underclassman. I've got the edge. I'm still twenty years old. Look at you. You're an old man.'

Kirk landed punch after punch until he knocked Finnegan down a rocky slope where he writhed in pain.

'I can't move me leg. I can't feel me leg. My back is broken. You've broken me back,' Finnegan called out.

Kirk held out his hand. 'Can you feel that?'

Finnegan kicked him to the ground. 'Can you feel that, now?' he asked as Kirk passed out. 'Sleep sweet, Jimmy boy. Sleep as long as you like. Sleep forever, Jim boy. Forever and forever.'

'Won't you ever learn, Jim boy?' Finnegan asked as Kirk regained consciousness. 'You never could take me, you know.'

'Finnegan . . . One thing,' Kirk said.

'Sure. Name it.'

'Answers.'

'Earn them!' he said as he threw dirt in Kirk's face. The exchange of punches resumed until they were both on their hands and knees, too tired to continue.

'Not bad,' Finnegan confessed. 'Kind of makes up for things, huh, Jim?'

'A lot of things. What's been happening to my people?' Kirk demanded.

'I never answer questions from plebes, Jimmy boy.'

'I'm not a plebe. This is today, fifteen years later. What are you doing here?'

'I'm being exactly what you expect me to be, Jimmy boy.'

Kirk landed a final haymaker that knocked Finnegan out cold.

'Did you enjoy it, Captain?' Spock asked as he approached. He had not followed his captain's orders, because he knew those orders were flawed.

'Yes, I enjoyed it. After all these years,' Kirk admitted, and then smiled in realisation. 'I did enjoy it. The one thing I wanted to do after all these years was to beat the tar out of Finnegan.'

'Which supports a theory I've been formulating,' Spock told him.

'That we're all meeting people and things that we happen to be thinking about at the moment.'

'Yes. Somehow our thoughts are read, these things are quickly manufactured and provided for us.'

'Dangerous if we happen to be thinking about . . .'

'Yes,' Spock interrupted. 'We must all control our thoughts.'

'Difficult.'

'The force field we encountered is obviously underground, manufacturing these things. Passages lead to the surface. Just for example, when Rodriguez thought of a tiger.'

'Spock,' Kirk said urgently. A tiger had appeared on the trail behind them. 'We've got to get back to the landing party and warn them.'

* * *

There was a scream from the bushes where Tonia had changed out of her fairytale gown. The Doctor, Mickey, and Sulu all saw Tonia being pulled back into the undergrowth by a bearded man wearing a white shirt, with a red and gold waistcoat, a red cape, tan trousers, and black, knee high boots. He held a sword in one hand as he pulled her by the wrist.

'Jeez, what now?' Mickey asked.

'Don Juan,' the Doctor said as he held up his sonic and advanced. 'This ends, now!'

'What good's a sonic screwdriver against a sword?' Mickey asked.

The Doctor didn't answer. He was scanning the energy interference, rather than the man holding Tonia, who was waving his sword menacingly.

'Hmm. Just as I thought. The energy field occurs when these things appear, similar to the Nesteen control signal' he announced, before looking up at Don Juan. 'Let her go.'

Tonia continued to try and pull away, but his grip was too strong. He continued to taunt the Doctor with his sword.

'Someone I care a great deal about has just died,' the Doctor said menacingly. 'So right now, you are standing in a very dangerous place. I suggest you let Yeoman Barrows go.'

Mickey and Sulu had come to stand at each shoulder in support. There was no way they were going to let anything happen to Tonia.

'Sulu, Barrows. Front and centre,' Kirk ordered as he and Spock ran into the glade. 'Doctor, Mister Smith. Please refrain from thinking about anything dangerous.'

Don Juan saw that he was outnumbered, so released Tonia and ran off into the undergrowth.

'Sir,' Sulu replied.

'Don't ask any questions, Sulu. Face front, everyone. Don't talk. Don't breathe. Don't think. You're at attention. Concentrate on that and only that. Concentrate,' Kirk commanded.

'Doctor! Rose's body . . . it's gone!' Mickey realised.

'NO!' the Doctor cried out in anguish.

'Rose was injured?' Kirk asked.

'Dead,' the Doctor said quietly. 'Killed by an aeroplane machine gun.'

'And her body has been taken . . . Just like Doctor McCoy's,' Spock noted.

'Captain. I don't know what kind of sick planet this is,' the Doctor said menacingly. 'But I'm going to find out who's responsible for all this, and then I'm going to make them pay.'

'Captain,' Spock said urgently as a smiling grey-haired man in a long green robe walked towards them.

'Who are you?' Kirk asked, thinking it was someone's imagining brought to life.

'I'm the caretaker of this place, Captain Kirk,' he said.

'You know my name?'

'But of course. Lieutenant Sulu, Yeoman Barrows, the Doctor, Mister Smith, and Mister Spock. We've just discovered you don't understand all this. These experiences were intended to amuse you.

'Amuse? That's your word for what we've been through?' Kirk asked.

'Do we look like we are laughing?' the Doctor said angrily.

'Not much of a caretaker if you ask me,' Mickey added.

'But none of this is permanent. Here you have to only imagine your fondest wishes, either old ones you wish to relive or new ones, anything at all. Battle, fear, love, triumph. Anything that pleases you can be made to happen,' the Caretaker told them.

'The term is amusement park,' Spock informed them.

'Of course,' the Caretaker agreed.

'Disneyland this ain't,' Mickey said angrily. 'Amusement parks are supposed to thrill, not kill.'

'Amusement park Mister Spock?' Kirk asked his science officer.

'An old Earth name for a place where people could go to see and do all sorts of fascinating things.'

'This entire planet was constructed for our race of people to come and play,' the Caretaker said.

Sulu looked puzzled. 'Play? As advanced as you obviously are, and you still play?'

'Yes, play, Mister Sulu. The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play,' Kirk told him.

'Exactly, Captain,' the Caretaker agreed. 'How very perceptive of you.'

'But that still doesn't explain the death of my ship's surgeon and a young woman,' Kirk said.

'Possibly because no one has died, Jim,' McCoy said as he strolled towards them, arm-in-arm with two lovely, scantily clad women. 'I was taken below the surface for some rather remarkable repairs. It's amazing. They've got a factory complex down there you wouldn't believe. They can build or do anything immediately.'

'But that means . . .' Mickey started.

'That Rose is alive!' the Doctor finished. 'Where is she?'

'Your loved one will be along shortly, once the nanogenes have finished repairing her body,' the Caretaker told him with a smile.

'Loved one?' Mickey queried.

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders, feigning innocence. Although he knew that it wasn't the first time he'd been accused of being in love with Rose.

Tonia went over to McCoy. 'And how do you explain them?' she asked, nodding at the women hanging on his arms.

'Oh. Them,' McCoy said guiltily. 'Well I, er, I was thinking about a little cabaret I know on Rigel Two, and, er, there were these two girls in the chorus line. And well, here they are . . . Well after all, I am on shore leave.'

'And so am l,' Tonia reminded him with a hint of annoyance.

'Oh, yes. So you are. Well, girls, I suppose you can turn something up.'

The cabaret girls let go of McCoy and went over to the Doctor and Mickey, who had smirks on their faces as the young ladies linked arms with them.

'We regret that some of you've been made uncomfortable,' the Caretaker apologised.

'Uncomfortable?' Mickey asked in disbelief, his fists clenched. 'Uncomfortable? I watched my best friend die in front of me. That wasn't uncomfortable mate . . . That was unbearable.'

He took a step towards the caretaker, but the Doctor put a hand on his shoulder.

'I think as a care - taker, maybe you should have taken MORE care,' the Doctor said. 'A simple precaution of an orbital beacon for ships passing through, explaining the purpose of the planet, and warning of the effects of stray thoughts.'

The Caretaker nodded in agreement. 'An interesting suggestion, Doctor. Thank you. I will raise the subject with the directors of this facility.'

'You say your people built all this. Who are you? What planet are you from?' Kirk asked.

'My impression is that your race is not yet ready to understand us, Captain,' the Caretaker told him.

'I tend to agree,' said Spock.

'They might not be, but I am,' the Doctor said. 'Let me guess. You've assimilated Nesteen Auton technology, adapted it and improved on the control matrix.'

The Caretaker raised his eyebrows in surprise. 'Yes, that's correct.'

'Hang on,' Mickey said with a frown. 'That was the plastic puddle under the Thames that kidnapped me in a dustbin?'

The Doctor nodded. 'That's them. This lot nicked their technology and adapted it. I'm betting they came across a Chula med-ship as well.'

'Ah. A reasonable deduction. However, the Chula came to us asking if they could buy our nanogene technology. That sale partly funded this facility,' the Caretaker informed him.

Kirk's communicator beeped for his attention. He took it off his belt and flipped it open.

'Kirk here.'

['This is the bridge, Captain. Our power systems have just come back on. Do you require assistance?'] Uhura said.

'No, everything is in order, Lieutenant. Stand by.'

'However,' the Caretaker began.

['Aye, aye, sir.'] Uhura answered.

'If you would use the proper caution, this amusement planet of ours could be an ideal place for your people to enjoy themselves, if you wish,' he finished.

'It's what the doctor ordered, Jim,' McCoy said with a lopsided smile.

'Did I?' the Doctor asked absently, and then realised what McCoy meant. 'Oh. That doctor.'

'Lieutenant,' Kirk said into his communicator.

['Sir?']

'Commence transporting shore leave parties. Tell them to prepare for the best shore leave they've ever had. Kirk out.'

'I don't know. I'm only dead for five minutes an' you two find a couple of dolly birds,' Rose said as she strolled into the glade.

The Doctor and Mickey spun around with enormous smiles on their faces.

'ROSE!' they shouted as they ran towards her. The Doctor reached her first and grabbed her in a spinning hug.

'Are you all right?' he asked her as they just stood there, hugging each other.

'I am now,' she said.

'Do I get one of those?' Mickey asked.

'Oh come here yer big lump,' she said affectionately, and hugged him around the neck.

'We thought we'd lost you back there, babe' Mickey told her.

'Me too,' she replied.

She looked over at the Doctor and saw the troubled expression on his face that she had seen when he'd left the derelict ship, Madame de Pompadour. She released the hug from Mickey, and went over to hold the Doctor's hand. 'Are YOU all right?'

He gave her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. 'I'm always all right,' he said dismissively, giving her the same, automatic reply.

'Captain, I'll go back aboard ship and take over. I've already had as much shore leave as I care for,' Spock informed him.

'No, Mister Spock. I'll go. You . . .' Kirk fell silent as he saw Ruth walking towards the group. 'On the other hand, I'll stay for a day or two.'

'We'll come with you if that's all right,' the Doctor said. 'Mickey's still waiting for his tour of the Enterprise.'

'Of course Doctor,' Spock replied and took out his communicator. 'Spock to Enterprise. Four to beam up.'

Mickey got the same childlike thrill of seeing the glade morph into Transporter Room One. He looked over to Rose and the Doctor, and saw that they seemed to have taken it in their stride.

Spock stepped off the transporter pad and turned to them. 'I must go to the Bridge now, but please feel free to explore the ship. If you get lost, or need any assistance, all the crew members will be made aware of your presence and will offer their help.'

'Thank you Mister Spock,' the Doctor replied.

'How many times have you done that? 'Cos I can't imagine that gettin' old anytime soon,' Mickey told them with a grin, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

'Oh, a few times now,' Rose said as she thought back over her travels. 'I don't remember the first time, 'cos I woke up in a futuristic version of The Weakest Link on the Game Station.'

Mickey remembered Rose telling him the story of the Game Station. 'Is that where he . . .' He nodded at the Doctor and massaged his own face with his fingers.

Rose laughed. 'Yeah, that was it. Oh, and the second time, I was shot by the Ann Droid . . . Him and Jack thought I'd been vaporized.' She briefly saw that troubled expression flash across the Doctor's face again, but knew he would say he was all right if she said anything.

The Doctor switched on his smile. 'Right then Mickey-Boy. The Star Ship Enterprise. Four hundred feet in diameter, nine hundred and forty seven feet long, with twenty four decks. Where do you want to start?'

'Oh wow. I dunno. I've seen the bridge at the top. How's about we work our way down from there?' he suggested.

'Sounds good to me,' the Doctor said, and led them out of the room.

* * *

After working their way down the decks, they stopped off at the portside recreation room on deck six. Rose remembered the amazing pizza she'd had last time, and she'd dialled up one for each of them. Crew members whose quarters were on starboard side of the ship were on shore leave, and some of the remaining portside crew were relaxing and eating in the room.

'So Doc?' Mickey said as he picked up his final slice of pizza. 'I can understand how you an' Rose were in an episode which was on the telly, 'cos Roddenberry was there to remember it. But I definitely remember an episode with that planet down there, with the white rabbit, Don Juan, an' McCoy gettin' speared by a knight.'

'Really?' Rose asked with a frown. She turned to the Doctor. 'But how? I mean, Roddenberry's not here now.'

'Ah, well. There are other people here who remember it. Maybe they pitch the idea to a writer in the sixties,' the Doctor told them.

'Who's that then?' Mickey asked with a puzzled frown.

The Doctor gave a single laugh. 'Mickey the idiot.'

'Oi!' Mickey protested.

'It's us,' Rose told him.

'Us?'

'It has to be us. We must go back to the sixties and tell the story to a writer,' Rose said, looking to the Doctor for confirmation.

The Doctor gave her his proud smile and waggled his eyebrows. 'It has to be.'

'Oh yeah,' Mickey nodded thoughtfully, and then looked accusingly at the Doctor. 'An' you knew that all along. You didn't have to call me an idiot.'

Rose held his hand in support and gave a lopsided smile to the Doctor. 'He's right y'know. That was a bit unfair.'

The Doctor rolled his eyes. 'Oh, all right. Sorry I called you an idiot.'

'Thank you,' Mickey said, feeling vindicated.

'So, I wonder what kind of desserts they do in here?' Rose asked, trying to change the subject.

'Dunno,' Mickey replied. 'Howdya find out. Is there a menu or somethin'?'

'There probably is on one of the desk terminals,' the Doctor told them.

'Why don'tcha go an' ask her?' Rose suggested to Mickey, looking at an attractive redhead in a blue tunic who was sorting through the food replicator cards. 'I bet she could help ya.'

Mickey looked at the female crew member, and then back at Rose with a knowing smile. She was trying to play matchmaker. 'Y'reckon? Okay, I'll ask her what she recommends.'

Rose and the Doctor watched as he stood and walked over to the replicators. Rose reached across the table and held the Doctor's hand. She'd been waiting to talk to him alone since they'd got back from the planet surface.

'It must have been awful for you, having to watch me die like that,' she told him. He couldn't just say he was all right to that. He'd have to tell her how he felt.

He put his hand on top of hers and looked at them. His lips were pressed together in a thin line. He looked up to the ceiling, blinking back tears. He looked around the room to avoid looking at Rose's concerned face. He looked at Mickey who was in conversation with the attractive redhead. Finally, he looked into those gorgeous, hazel eyes.

He nodded. 'Yes, it was. I felt like I did on Satellite Five when I thought you'd been vaporized in front of me. And then in van Statten's vault when I heard the Dalek fire its gun. Each time a part of me died as well.'

Rose reached up with her other hand and stroked his cheek. 'I'm sorry you had to go through that.'

'But each of those times wasn't real. You hadn't been harmed,' he continued. 'This time though, it was for real. I held you in my arms as your life ebbed away. And I was powerless to stop it. It was like the End of Days on Gallifrey . . . All those people dying in the last act of the Time War, and I could do nothing to help them.'

He realised that he'd been squeezing her hand hard. He eased up on the grip, but still held her hand. 'And when they took your body . . . I was ready to tear the planet apart to find you.'

'Oh come here,' Rose said as she stood and pulled him to his feet and into a comforting hug. They just stood there for a while, rubbing their backs as though they were rubbing away the painful memories.

'Not interruptin' anythin' am I?' Mickey asked as he approached with three tall glasses, and three long spoons on a tray.

'Er, no,' Rose said, as she released the Doctor from the hug. 'Just talkin' about when I got shot. It was a bit distressin' for everybody.'

'Yer tellin' me,' Mickey said. 'I ain't used to all this blood an' gore like you two.'

Rose realised that Mickey had never seen anyone die in front of his eyes before. Especially his best friend. She took the tray off him, put it on the table and gave him a hug as well, finishing with a kiss on the cheek.

'Sorry. I kinda forgot you're not used to that sort of thing,' she apologised before looking at the desserts. 'So what did you get for us?'

'Claudia called them "Risan Knickerbocker Glories",' he told them.

'Claudia?' Rose said teasingly with raised eyebrows.

Mickey smiled and rolled his eyes. 'Yeah. That's her name, Claudia.' He sat down and picked up a spoon. 'Are you gonna try these, or are ya just gonna stand there teasin' me all day?'

Rose laughed and sat down with the Doctor. They picked up their spoons and scooped up the dessert.

'Oh. That is good,' the Doctor said as he sucked the upside down spoon, before taking it out of his mouth.

'Mmmmmm,' Rose said with her eyes closed, savouring the sweet, tangy flavours.

'Yeah. That's all right,' Mickey said as he attacked the dessert with gusto. He spotted Claudia watching them and held up his half empty glass in salute to her choice.


	7. The Final Frontier

**Author's notes:**

Mickey finishes his tour of the Enterprise. They come back from the 1960's after telling Gene Roddenberry their story, and set off on their next adventure.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to read, and to those who left comments. Much appreciated.

 **Chapter 7**

 **The Final Frontier**

After their meal, the Doctor, Rose and Mickey set off again on their tour of the Enterprise. They turned right as they left the recreation room, to see a turbolift along the curved corridor on the left. After a few seconds wait, the red doors slid open, and two female crew stepped out of the lift wearing yellow mini dress tunics. The trio entered and held the handles around the edge.

'Deck seven,' the Doctor said as he twisted the handle.

The lift pod moved backwards and then sideways. It then moved down a deck and horizontally towards the centre of the saucer. The doors swished open, and they stepped out.

'What's on this deck then?' Rose asked.

'Mainly medical facilities,' the Doctor told them. 'With some stores, ships computer servers, and the emergency bridge.'

'How'd you know all that?' Mickey asked him.

'I looked up the floor plans last time we were here,' the Doctor replied.

'What, an' you remember all of it?' Mickey asked incredulously.

The Doctor looked at him as though he had dribbled down his red, starfleet sweatshirt. 'Of course I do.'

They took Mickey to the arboretum on deck eight, which was a park which curved around the inside of the starboard hull for a hundred feet, and was sixty feet across. It had a meandering gravel path with benches where crew members could enjoy some private time in a natural environment. There was also a pool with fish in it.

'This is amazin',' Mickey said in open mouthed wonder. 'I don't remember seein' any of this in the original series.'

'You wouldn't have. NBC didn't have the budget to build a complete star ship,' the Doctor told them.

They worked their way down the other decks, which were either fabrication workshops, or storage areas. They passed deck nineteen where the TARDIS was waiting for them, and went to see the the shuttle craft storage bay on deck twenty one. There were eight, white craft with large, black tinted windows at the front, four on each side of the bay.

'Ho-ho,' Mickey said, rubbing his hands together with delight. 'Look at those beauties. We send men to the moon in a tin can, and this lot have mini buses.'

'None of which would have been possible without those pioneering men in the tin can,' the Doctor reminded him.

'Hey. I'm not belittlin' what they achieved,' said Mickey. 'I'm just sayin' how far they've come since those first small steps.'

Rose hugged Mickey's arm proudly, and the Doctor patted his shoulder. 'Quite right too Mickey-Boy. Quite right too.'

After being shown around one of the shuttles by a maintenance technician, they finally reached the Shuttle Hangar on deck nineteen, where the TARDIS was waiting for them.

'Well. Here we are then, end of the tour,' the Doctor announced as they stepped out of the turbolift.

'Oh man. This has been the best,' Mickey said, sad that it was all over.

'Yeah. We didn't see all that last time we came,' Rose agreed.

'And now it's time to move on,' the Doctor said. 'But first of all, I think we should thank our host and say goodbye.'

He moved to a small, red panel to the side of the turbolift, pressed the white button next to the grey speaker.

"Whee-ee-woo"

'This is the Doctor calling Mister Spock on the Bridge,'

['Spock here, Doctor.']

'Ah, Mister Spock. We've finished giving Mickey the tour so we'll be on our way now. We just wanted to thank you and your crew for your hospitality.'

['No problem, Doctor. Have a safe journey all of you. Live long and prosper.']

' _He really says that!_ ' Mickey whispered to Rose, holding his hand up in the Vulcan salute.

The Doctor looked at them with a lopsided smile as he spoke again. 'Live long and prosper Mister Spock. And please give our regards to Captain Kirk. Bye.'

He took his thumb off the button, and they all strolled over to the TARDIS. They took one last look around the hangar and stepped through the blue doors in to the gothic interior of the console room. The Doctor ran up the ramp to the console, throwing his long brown coat over the coral, and started up the Time Rotor.

'Hey Doc?' Mickey said, deep in thought. 'I was wonderin' about those people who were created down on the planet . . .'

The Doctor looked up from the console. 'Hmm. What about them?'

'Well. I was wonderin' what happens to them when the people who thought about them leave . . . I mean, do they hang around, or do they disappear back underground?' Mickey asked.

'Oh yeah. I hadn't thought about that,' added Rose.

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. 'Blimey Mickey. You're on a roll today. I have no idea. They're self sustaining autonomous units controlled by that complex energy field, so I suppose they could hang around and interact with other people on the surface.'

'Only, I was thinkin' . . . There's a copy of Captain Flash and Rose's mum down there . . . Shouldn't we warn the people on shore leave?' Mickey said with a mischievous grin.

'Oi!' Rose said, playfully slapping his arm.

'No. He could be right. Those people down on the planet won't have come across anything like your mum and Captain Jack. Maybe we should warn them . . .' The Doctor looked over the controls for a while and then looked up, giving them a big grin. 'Nah. Let them boldly go where no one has gone before.'

Mickey spluttered a laugh as the Doctor gave an open mouthed smile. Rose, who was slightly indignant about them making fun of her mother, started to laugh as she thought about her mum flirting with captain Kirk, and then laughed even more when she thought about Jack flirting with captain Kirk.

Mickey noticed her expression become thoughtful as she stopped laughing. 'You okay Babe?'

The Doctor looked up from the console and saw the same sad, thoughtful look on her face.

'Eh? Oh yeah . . . I was just thinkin'. While I was on that planet, I could've seen my dad,' she said wistfully.

'Do you want to?' the Doctor asked her. 'We can go back.'

Rose thought about his offer and then smiled, shaking off the melancholy mood. 'Nah. It would only be a copy, made from the memories I already have of him. I've had a real hug with my real dad. That'll do me.'

'Right then. Off to see Roddenberry in the nineteen sixties,' the Doctor said, pulling levers with a flourish. He then looked at his two companions. 'And you two had better get changed out of those uniforms if you want to be taken seriously.'

Rose looked down at her tunic and smoothed it down. 'Oh yeah. We don't want to look like Trekkies before Trekkies were invented do we.'

'Who's to say we aren't the first Trekkies that start the trend?' Mickey said, tugging down his sweatshirt.

'Me!' the Doctor told him. 'Oh go and get changed,' he said as though he was a parent telling off a couple of teenage children.

Rose grabbed Mickey's hand and dragged him towards the passageway opening.

'If it's any consolation . . . you can keep the uniform,' the Doctor called after him.

'Oh neat,' he heard from the passageway which made him smile and shake his head.

* * *

The three time travellers walked up the ramp to the console, and the Doctor activated the Time Rotor, putting them into the vortex.

'Did you think Gene looked tired?' Rose asked the Doctor as she activated the monitor which hung over the console.

'He did, yeah,' the Doctor agreed. 'Mind you, I'm not surprised. He said he'd been working flat out for the last two years without a break.'

'He's certainly packed a lot in since you dropped him off,' Mickey said, referring to the incident where the Enterprise had travelled back in time and accidentally wrecked Roddenberry's jet fighter which had been scrambled to investigate.

'You're right, he has. Being a pilot, joining the police force. And all the time he was honing his writing skills and getting himself know to all the major television production companies, ready for when science fiction became popular again,' the Doctor explained.

'An' all those plane crashes he survived. It's like he's livin' a charmed life,' Rose added.

'I suppose he is in a way,' the Doctor said as he started making adjustments to the controls. 'In the timeline we remember, he lives on to create Star Trek. He's one of those defining fixed points in time.'

'According to this though, the "Shore Leave" episode wasn't plain sailin',' Rose said as she read the history on the monitor. 'It says here Gene had been runnin' flat out for two years without a break, just like he told us. He first produced the army drama The Lieutenant.'

'That was while he waited for "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer limits" to make science fiction popular to the viewing audiences,' the Doctor added.

'Well, he then sold Star Trek to NBC, and finally got the series into production,' Rose read. 'Just after "Shore Leave" was approved for pre production, his wife Eileen, and his doctor insisted that he should take a vacation.'

'Eileen? I thought he was married to Majel Barrett,' Mickey said with a frown.

Rose searched for more information. 'Er, he didn't marry Barrett until 1969. It says here that he was married to Eileen-Anita Rexroat before that.'

'Huh. Never knew that,' replied Mickey.

'He got renowned science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon to write the script,' Rose continued to read. 'He'd emphasized the importance of fantasy as a component of relaxation, and the network was concerned that the script might be too surreal.'

'That must have been McCoy's white rabbit and Tonia's fairytale princess outfit we told Gene about,' the Doctor speculated, continuing to orbit the console, making adjustments as he went. 'Mickey. Could you hold your finger on that button for me?'

'Yeah, sure,' Mickey said and pushed down the button with his right index finger.

'Well, the bosses at NBC didn't like it,' Rose read on. 'So Roddenberry assured the network that the script would be rewritten and the fantasy would be de-emphasized before he went on vacation. Unfortunately, this was not made clear to incomin' operational producer Gene L. Coon, who did the rewrite and emphasized the fantasy aspect even more,' Rose laughed.

Mickey read the next part as Rose was laughing. 'Roddenberry returned the day before shootin' was due to begin and realised that he had a problem. He set up shop under a tree with his typewriter, frantically rewritin' and tryin' to stay ahead of the production crew. Apparently, much of the dialogue was ad-libbed.'

Rose went back to reading. 'Even with Roddenberry's rewritin', many of the fantasy aspects remained, from an encounter with a samurai, to meetin' a tiger.' Rose frowned. 'Those weren't fantasy aspects. Wasn't it Rodriguez who thought up the tiger?'

'Yes and Mister Spock told us he'd seen it, along with the samurai, when he and Kirk were running back to the glade,' the Doctor recalled. 'Could you push that lever up for me Rose?'

'Eh?' Rose looked away from the screen to see where he was pointing, and pushed the lever up.

The Doctor continued. 'And don't forget, we gave Roddenberry a first hand account of our adventure. With retelling it to Sturgeon, and with Coon reading Sturgeon's script, the story would get embellished and edited until it was no longer an accurate account . . . You can let go of the lever now Rose.'

Mickey thought about that and looked at Rose. 'So when you come home an' tell me about what you've been up to, do I get an accurate account, or do I get the embellished and edited highlights?'

'No. I tell it like it is,' Rose said with a reassuring smile.

'Cos, I mean, I know the Slitheen things were real aliens. Saw them with me own eyes . . . and got covered in their snot with yer mum. But all those aliens you told me about on Platform One, they were really aliens? And those gas things in Cardiff?' he asked.

'Yep. one hundred percent alien,' she said as she sat on the jump seat.

'And the werewolf?' Mickey queried?

'Wellll. It wasn't really a werewolf,' the Doctor said as he sat next to Rose. 'More of a Lupine Wavelength Heamovariform . . . But to all intents and purpose, yeah, it was a werewolf.'

'So there really are all sorts of creatures out there?' Mickey asked.

'Yeah,' Rose nodded. 'Flaps of skin. Big old faces . . .'

'Talking trees. Talking gas,' the Doctor added. 'And that weird munchkin lady with the big eyes? Do you remember? The way she looked at you! And then she opens her mouth and fire comes out!' the Doctor said with a laugh.

'I thought I was going to get frazzled!' she laughed with him.

'Yeah, one minute she's standing there, and the next minute . . .'

' . . . .Roar!' they said together, laughing.

'Yeah, where was that, then? What happened?' Mickey asked, smiling at the fun that they'd had.

'Oh, it was on this er, this er, planet thing, asteroid, it's a long story, you had to be there.' He noticed that Mickey was still holding down the button on the console. 'Er, what're you doing that for?'

'Because you told me to,' Mickey said.

'When was that?'

'About half an hour ago.'

'Erm . . . you can let go now,' the Doctor said sheepishly. Mickey took his finger off the button and it went "bloop". Rose started giggling.

'Well, how long's it been since I could've stopped?'

'Ten minutes . . . ? Twenty . . . ? Twenty nine?'

'You just forgot me!' Mickey said angrily.

'No, no, no. I was just . . . I was . . . I was calibrating. I was just . . . . No, I know exactly what I'm doing.'

"BOOM!"

The console exploded in a flash of light and plumes of smoke, and the group were thrown to the floor. They picked themselves up and clung on to the console.

'What's happened?' Rose asked.

'The Time Vortex is gone. That's impossible, it's just gone,' the Doctor said, trying to compensate with the controls. 'Brace yourself! We're going to crash!'

The TARDIS slammed into the ground, and threw them to the floor, all the lights went out, and the console fell silent.

'Everyone all right? Rose? Mickey?'

'I'm fine,' Mickey said. 'I'm okay. Sorry. Yeah.

The Doctor looked up at the rotor. 'She's dead . . . . The TARDIS is dead.'

'You can fix it?' Rose asked as though it was a statement of fact.

'There's nothing to fix . . . she's perished,' he said as he circled the console. 'The last TARDIS in the universe, extinct,' he said sadly.

'We can get help, yeah?' she said.

'Where from?' the Doctor asked her.

'Well, we've landed. We've got to be somewhere,' she said.

Mickey moved away from the console and walked down the ramp.

'We fell out of the Vortex, through the Void, into nothingness,' he said, his voice went quiet and thoughtful. 'We're in some sort of no place . . . . The silent realm . . . . The lost dimension.'

'Otherwise known as London,' Mickey said as he looked outside the door.

 **The End**


End file.
